WASTE RECYCLING
JOHN CRAWFORD
JOHN trained at Saltcoats Burgh in the late 60s. After a decade he moved to PD Beatwaste Ltd/ Wimpey Waste Management Ltd. He then joined the Civil Engineering Dept at Strathclyde University before posts at Renfrew, Hamilton, Inverness and East Ayrshire Councils. A Fellow of CIWM, he served on their Scottish Centre Council from 1988-2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland and was their President between 1991-92.
Back to the (plastic) future!
SORRY to beat an old drum again, folks (see my comments in December 2014 and February 2018) but this rant was prompted by the ‘Plastic Patrol’ article in our March issue (see page 34).
All credit to them for updating Keep Britain Tidy’s assessment of ‘the top ten most frequently found types of litter’ (although why didn’t they include dog dirt, or chewing gum?). They did, however, list ‘plastic bags’ at number 7 (although only 6% of all types of litter they counted) and on the strength of that, called for (among other recommendations) ‘a nationwide ban on plastic bags’, despite the fact the same article says ‘SMEs hand out 3.6 billion single-use plastic bags annually.’
My immediate thought was ‘if these are banned, what are people supposed to use instead?’
I’ve always felt that the 5p carrier bag charge wouldn’t deliver the desired effects or benefits that it promised. It generates over £20million in VAT for
the Exchequer and if WRAP’s official figures are correct, nearly half of the smaller traders who charge the 5p are keeping the remaining 4p as extra income since there’s no mechanism to check if they’re donating it to ‘good environment causes’ as they’re supposed to.
And, of course, WRAP can’t accurately estimate the number of plastic bags sold by smaller shops to householders who now don’t use old plastic carriers to bag their rubbish before dumping it in their bins. My neighbours and I live in a block of 32 apartments and I reckon we’re now consuming well over 15,000 of these bags every year: costly but still cheaper than a 5p shot!
The same week as our March Issue was distributed, CIWM’s online Circular carried a story about another report from the Green Alliance saying that on average, people are buying 54 ‘bags- for-life’ every year, so it’s obvious that the current strategies aren’t working.
If these two reports are read in conjunction with recent research that the proposed Deposit Return Scheme could actually mean an additional 800million+ plastic bottles being consumed (the deposit on a multipack of 24 cans is six times that of an equivalent volume contained in large plastic bottles) never mind that not everybody will live near an authorised ‘refunder’) then it looks like we’re on the wrong track if we really want to address the plastic problem.
I still think we need to start at the other end by firstly working with the industry to ensure we have enough installed capacity to reprocess all the plastic generated in the UK, then create a financial regime that draws plastic recyclate into the system. Look what the Landfill Tax did for traditional waste recycling. If there was a guaranteed gate price (set realistically enough to accommodate the reprocessing industry), plastic would never get near the Council’s collection services.
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