By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Recoup, the organisation which represents a number of plastics manufacturing and recycling interests, said there had been “encouraging increases” in the rate of plastic bottle recycling in 2010, with 48.5% of bottles being collected, up 2.5 percentage points on 2009’s figure.
However it warned that collection rates would “struggle to meet the burgeoning demand for material”.
Recoup said its data would “ring alarm bells for policy makers, as well as those organisations across the plastic supply, collection and recycling chain”.
Non-bottle collection rates would increase significantly in the next five years, a trend which would require “urgent investment in sorting infrastructure and further development of sustainable and auditable end markets”.
Announcing the imminent publication of its latest report on UK household plastics packaging collection, Recoup’s deputy chief executive Steve Foster said the figure of nearly 22 million households in the UK which benefitted from a plastic bottle kerbside collection service was a “testament to 10 years of progress”.
“Bottle collection rates have risen from 3% to 48.5% during that time, the number of bring-collection points has more than trebled and non-bottle plastic collections have evolved from effectively nothing to 76,300 tonnes,” he added.
The greatest problem, the way I see it, is at least two-fold. The first one is that too many plastic bottles are simply tossed out by the consumer and end up in street side or park litter bins from there they go straight into landfill via the waste transfer stations.
The second one is also that where council have plastic bottles included in the kerbside collections, both that collection and the collections per se are but a sham often.
There is only one answer to that and that is to actually have sorters working at the waste transfer stations to separate the recyclables that have been collected and/or that have come in from the litter bins in parks, open spaces and by the road side. Only that way will we be able to fill the demand, if this demand comes to pass.
In addition to that maybe, just maybe, a deposit on such plastic bottles of, say 5pence or even 10pence, might be an incentive to either for the consumer to bring the bottle back to a store or for some other people, kids amongst them, to go out collecting, as is done in other countries.
Not rocket science, just common sense and old “technology”...
Recoup’s 2011 report will available from its website, www.recoup.org, in November.
© 2011
