The Changing Face of Plastics Recycling

The airing of the BBC’s Blue Planet II documentary in September 2017 is seen by many as the catalyst that stimulated significant action regards the way we use, reuse and dispose of plastics. Paul Fears from Bunting Magnetics looks at the proposed measures and asks what change is needed to make them a success.

Sincethatdocumentary aired in September 2017, there has been a swathe of political rhetoric culminating in the UK’s Autumn 2018 budget announcements recently, where Chancellor Philip Hammond outlined several new measures to tackle plastic waste. This included introducing a new tax from 1 April 2022 on produced or imported plastic packaging that does not include at least a 30 per cent recycled content. Revenues raised from such a tax would be used for redevelopment of the UK’s waste management system.

A unified approach

However, the fundamental difficulties in collecting, separating and re-using plastic remain. Despite the Chancellor committing £20 million to tackle plastics and boost recycling, there is no unified country-wide strategy. This must change to ensure that the proposed changes are a success. In the UK, each council adopts its own recycling strategy. Households in different regions are told to separate and collect different materials. Swindon council has taken one step further and is considering burning plastic along with other rubbish rather than sending the material abroad for recycling. Other councils, such as Basingstoke, have instructed residents to only recycle certain types of plastic.

Collection specification

The successful recycling of any material requires good planning and execution. Ironically, this must start at the end of the process. Firstly, waste plastic must be clearly categorised into material than is recyclable and unrecyclable, possibly using the global definition proposed by Plastics Recycling Europe and The Association of Plastic Recyclers. This ensures that recovered plastic waste can be re-used. Recovering, transporting and then discarding materials than are unrecyclable is costly in terms of effort, money and energy.

Secondly, strategically located plastic waste recycling plants are needed to keep transportation to a minimum. Each plant will receive the same mix of plastic waste, enabling continued development and improvement of the recycling process. This stops each plant having to develop unique processes to suit the plastic waste collected in one region.

By having a clear country-wide recycling collection specification, contamination levels of the plastic waste will reduce. Separation technology, such as magnetic separators and metal detectors, will still be required, but the purity levels of the end-product will increase.

A practical plan?

Some would argue that politicians have only introduced these new policies due to the unprecedented reaction from the public. However, setting targets without any definitive plan of how to achieve that result may be considered foolish. Equally, introducing new taxes, that may ultimately be paid by the consumer, is not addressing the key issues that prevent plastic waste from being recycled. It is time for the politicians to sit down with the industry and agree a proper plan.