John CRAWFORD He’s old school and we’re proud of it
An alternative to the media’s drastic plastic measures
WHEN lecturing about waste recycling during the early 1980s, I always started by pointing out we rarely fi nd any copper, brass or precious metals in our wheeled bins.
This was partly to grab the audience’s attention, but mostly to get the point across that if anything has a decent inherent value, it won’t get into the waste stream – at least not deliberately.
During the early 1980s, the prices paid for baled paper, cardboard and cans fl uctuated widely and often didn’t meet the cost of separate collections and processing.
Why not simply accept the majority of the population are not going to change?
Landfi ll tax made a big diff erence to the fi nances of recycling, as far as the denser waste streams were concerned.
Today, plastic waste continues to pose all sorts of problems, through littered beaches, untidy streets and public places. Plastic is now the subject of the latest crusade by one of the popular tabloids, not helped by the recent news that the Chinese won’t accept any more of ours for re-processing.
As usual, the intellectuals are proposing fi nancial and other interventions to deal with the problem: deposit return schemes on beverage containers; improved quality assurance on the end-products from our
MRFs; surcharging the fast-food industry etc.
But to be honest, there’s a limit to what can be done using these approaches, as most of the PR photos I’ve seen suggest that the plastic waste on our beaches looks more like fl y-tipping than random litter.
Over twenty years ago, I represented CIWM’s Scottish Centre in discussions with BP about their proposal for a plastics processor at Grangemouth. It would use thermal depolymerisation (they called it ‘cracking’) to break down unsorted plastic waste into its constituent hydrocarbon components.
For BP it was an opportunity to diversify, using plastic recyclate collected by the councils as feedstock, but with over 32 councils involved it would need some co-ordination if it were to succeed. I suggested that if they got the gate price right, the venture would coordinate itself.
As often happens with bright ideas, the project came to nothing.
I wonder, rather than try to reduce the amount of plastic waste we create – despite all the education, PR, fi nancial inducements etc that have been promoted by Keep Scotland Beautiful, Keep Britain Tidy and WRAP – why not simply accept the majority of the population are not going to change their habits and try something diff erent?
Our councils are collecting a lot of plastic recyclate that now has an uncertain future.
Perhaps a diff erent approach would suffi ce through collecting all the plastic rubbish, recyclate etc, and negotiate a deal with the hydrocarbon industry where they’ll install enough capacity to process our plastic
waste without it leaving the UK. The tonnages are enough to justify a strategic network of ‘Crackers, ’ with plastic waste going in at one end, and oil and gas being generated at the other. This could produce an alternative consistent source of energy, rather than fossil fuels. The deal would require an index-linked, guaranteed gate price to justify the capital investment required, but could give plastic waste suffi cient inherent value that much of it wouldn’t get into the waste stream. Consider all the new jobs it could create, not just in processing but in handling and transport. Or the massive fi nancial and carbon savings, in not having to transport plastic recyclate around the world by sea. The amount of raw product available makes it look like a no-brainer, and I’m sure the industry would be happy to explore the idea. And if the stories about ‘large whirlpools of plastics in some oceans’ are true, we should process this too.
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.
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SHM February, 2018
www.skiphiremagazine.co.uk
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