PLASTIC RECYCLING –
There are over 50 plastic materials in common use, and all of them CAN be
recycled. Most of them aren’t, either because they are difficult to identify
(and obviously no-one will buy an unknown plastic!) or because they are
contaminated.
The cost of collection and transport of such lightweight material is
another reason recycling is difficult. A lorry which can carry 5 tonnes of
paper, for instance, would carry about one tonne of bottles – but cost the same
to run. Since the Government bases all a Council’s performance figures on
tonnes, it is much less attractive to collect plastics.
What can we do in Shrewsbury?
There is no household collection of plastics in Shrewsbury, but all the major supermarkets
have a plastic bottle bank,. There is another in the Guildhall car park, and
Battlefield Recycling Centre accepts them too, making 6 in all. The scheme is
due to be expanded in the very near future; the council hope
to add in about 5 more skips, probably Minsterley Village Hall, Castlefields
precinct , Bicton co-op, Bomere Heath Red Lion, and somewhere south side,
Bayston Hill or Dorrington. That should help improve on the 100 tonnes collected last year, with Battlefield getting another 50 tonnes.
They ONLY accept plastic bottles (not the caps – please remove these
first). As you will see from the next section, these are the most common,
easily identified and valuable items to recycle.
One potential problem is the introduction of compostable plastic bottles. While this may seem like a good idea,
introducing these into the recycling bins would be a disaster! PLEASE check
that you don’t put these in – they should be clearly marked, and should go in
your compost bin.
As you can imagine, the manufacturers will only pay good money for bales
of sorted plastics, where they know what they are getting.
People are only just starting to separate waste for recycling, and it
needs to be made as easy as possible – anyone can recognise paper, but to
differentiate various types of plastic, you would have to examine the symbol on
each item – assuming there is one!
It is therefore much easier and safer to ask people to recycle plastic
bottles, which are easily recognisable, and such items are a large proportion
of the plastic used, and are generally clean (please wash them before recycling
– unless they just contained water).
Plastic from Shrewsbury get sent to JFC Delleve
Ltd to their reprocessing plant in St Helens.
They use it to make, among other things, plastic ‘planks’. You will be able to
see a garden bench made from these soon at the Wildlife Centre, Abbey Foregate.
SYMBOLS
The Different Types. What do they all mean?
To make sorting and thus recycling
easier, the American Society of Plastics Industry developed a standard marking
code to help consumers identify and sort the main types of plastic.
These types and their most common
uses are:
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PET
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Polyethylene terephthalate - Fizzy drink bottles and
oven-ready meal trays
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HDPE
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High-density polyethylene - Bottles for milk and
washing-up liquids.
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PVC
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Polyvinyl chloride - Food trays, cling film,
bottles for squash, mineral water and shampoo
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LDPE
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Low density polyethylene - Carrier bags and bin liners.
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PP
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Polypropylene - Margarine tubs, microwaveable
meal trays.
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PS
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Polystyrene - Yoghurt pots, foam meat or fish trays,
hamburger boxes and egg cartons, vending cups, plastic cutlery, protective
packaging for electronic goods and toys
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OTHER
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Any other plastics that do not fall into any of the
above categories. An example is melamine, which is often used in
plastic plates and cups.
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If you look on the plastics
products you buy, you should spot the little symbol.
How Is It Recycled?
Reuse
Ideas for reusing plastics:
plastic water
bottles
o
can
be used in the garden as bird scarers – remove the cap, cut slots on 2 sides to
make ‘wings’, then put upright on a cane so it blows round.
o
Cut
off the top, push into the soil round small plants to act as a greenhouse.
Later, cut the bottom out as well, to make a collar to keep out the slugs!
o
Mini
bottles from pro-biotic drinks make excellent cane top protectors.
o
Cut
the bottom out of a bottle, take off the cap, and push the bottle, top down,
into the soil next to tomatoes or courgette plants. Then water into the bottle,
so that the water gets to just the right place.
Carrier bags
o
are
best used again, by taking them with you when you go shopping. Get into the
habit of unpacking, then folding up your bags and putting them back in the car,
or somewhere else you will remember.
o
They
can be used to collect various recycled materials – tins in one, glass in
another, batteries etc can all be collected.
o
They
can also be used in your waste bin to collect rubbish to put in the bin.
However, after reading this guide, you should have very little!
Takeaway containers
and vegetable punnets
o
Coloured
punnets can be used as seed trays if you punch a few holes in the bottom. Use a
clear one on top to create a mini greenhouse.
o
Use
them to contain kid’s toys – leggo etc could be sorted into different boxes,
they are ideal for holding crayons and chalks.
Collection
Research produced by Recoup
(RECycling Of Used Plastics), the UK Plastic Bottle Recycling Survey 2006,
includes data from all 471 UK
local authorities. The research found that:
86% of all UK
local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles;
the number of plastic bottle collection schemes has
increased by 16% - a net increase of 55 schemes since the end of 2004. However,
this is not enough to supply the recycling plants, we need to collect many
more.
Plastic process scrap recycling
Currently most plastic recycling in
the UK
is of "process scrap" from industry, ie. polymers left over from the
production of plastics.
This is relatively simple and
economical to recycle, as there is a regular and reliable source, and the
material is relatively uncontaminated.
Process scrap represents some 250,000 tonnes of the plastic waste
arisings in the UK,
and approximately 95%
of this is recycled. This is usually described as reprocessing rather
than recycling.
Post-use plastic recycling
Post-use plastic can be described as plastic material
arising from products that have undergone a first full service life prior to
being recovered.
Mechanical recycling
Mechanical recycling of plastics
refers to processes which involve the melting, shredding, or granulation of
waste plastics.
Plastics must be sorted prior to mechanical
recycling.
At the moment in the UK
most sorting for mechanical recycling is done by trained staff who manually
sort the plastics into polymer type and/or colour.
Technology is being introduced to
sort plastics automatically, using various techniques such as
X-ray
fluorescence, infrared and near infrared spectroscopy, electrostatics, and
flotation.
Following sorting, the plastic is
either melted down directly and moulded into a new shape, or melted down after
being shredded into flakes and than processed into granules called regranulate.
Chemical or feedstock recycling
Feedstock recycling describes a
range of plastic recovery techniques to make plastics, which break down
polymers into their constituent monomers, which in turn can be used again in
refineries, or petrochemical and chemical production.
A range of feedstock recycling
technologies is currently being explored.
These include pyrolysis, hydrogenation,
gasification, and thermal cracking.
Feedstock recycling has a greater
flexibility over composition and is more tolerant to impurities than mechanical
recycling, although it is capital intensive and requires very large quantities
of used plastic for reprocessing to be economically viable (e.g. 50,000 tonnes
per year).
Myth - Plastic is Exported to China and Dumped in a Landfill
Plastic and other material does go to China and other countries, but it’s
not just dumped there – people are buying it to use!
Exports of waste material is big business.
Plastics for recycling are
regularly bought in the UK
and elsewhere for export to China.
A tonnes of plastic bottles for recycling can fetch around £200 so it would
make no economic sense to ship it half the way round the world to then simply
dump it.
In 2001, 66,813 tonnes of plastic were exported. This rose to 237,753 tonnes in
2005. Over half of the UK’s
plastics recycling is done via export.
Why is recyclable waste going abroad?
China in particular has fast-growing
manufacturing sectors – and ‘secondary resources’ like recyclable paper and
plastics are in high demand there.
In 2004, 173,947 tonnes of plastic packaging were
exported, the majority to Hong Kong and China,
and 170,370 tonnes were reprocessed in the UK.
China is now a major manufacturer of
plastic items. Therefore, if we want recycled plastics to be used again, it is
inevitable that at least a proportion of our waste plastics will be exported to
China
to be reused.
Don’t forget, the UK has a huge economy and rate of
consumption for its size, and we’re still very much in the early stages of our
plans for recycling.
There is currently a trade
imbalance between the UK and
China
and so we import much more than we export.
Isn’t it a waste of energy to ship recyclable material
abroad?
The ships that bring these imports
from China would go back
empty if they were not used to take secondary materials back to China..
So, all recyclable materials that
are exported to countries like India
and China are shipped from
the UK
on otherwise empty container ships.
How can you be sure it’s all above board?
The trade is robustly regulated by
the Environment Agency.
All statistical information, and
much of the rest from
June 2007 www.shrewsfoe.org.uk
.