That was the view from WRAP chief executive Jennie Price, who suggested today that now was a good time for plastics reprocessors to talk to councils concerning a more local route for their collected plastics.
– Jennie Price, WRAP
Mrs Price was speaking at today's conference in central London in which the packaging chain – including reprocessors – came together with retailers to discuss the opportunities now arising in the use of recycled PET in food and drinks packaging.
She told the cross-sector audience: “There is really significant opportunity for plastics reprocessors at the moment to have a much more educational conversation with local authorities, because the public is desperate to recycle their plastics – MPs are getting a lot of letters about that – and councils are nervous about seeing press photos of their plastics in China.”
“We should get a good hearing now – like the historical dialogue between local authorities and the big newsprint producers for paper – councils need to look their taxpayers in the eye and say 'I know where this material is going',” Mrs Price added.
Demand
With as much as 75% of UK plastic bottles being exported for reprocessing at the moment, such is the competition for material that UK-based reprocessors are importing thousands of tonnes of recovered PET from abroad.
UK demand for food-grade rPET in packaging currently stands at around 60,000 tonnes a year, but supply is only about 12,000 tonnes.
WRAP's new “Target Ten” campaign (see letsrecycle.com story) is seeking to double the amount of plastic bottles recycled by householders, with the hopes of increasing current recycling rates from around 13% of plastic bottles in the waste stream to over 30% by 2010.
The Banbury-based recycling development organisation believes with more and more retailers now interested in stocking packaging with a recycled content, and with collections soaring, new reprocessing plants in the pipeline for the UK will drive domestic demand for locally-collected material.
Contamination
But reprocessors attending today's conference warned that for some councils seeking a more domestic route for collected bottles, contamination levels were too high.
One delegate from Intercontinental Recycling Ltd said: “In the UK we get a lot of contaminated materials. We need to educate authorities – if you want to get increased recycling you have to deliver cleaner feedstock.”
Paul Davidson, WRAP's materials manager for plastics, said that councils had over the past two years been lulled by Chinese demand that was “not particularly contamination sensitive”. But, he said that even in countries like China, specifications for material were now tightening.
He said WRAP was “optimistic” that by 2010 the UK would be recycling some 200,000 tonnes of plastic bottles – about half of the total consumption of plastic bottles in this country.
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Mr Davidson pointed out to those considering setting up plastic bottle reprocessing plants in the UK that the most feasible way to operate would be to include sorting capacity for PET and HDPE bottles.
“Plants set up to deal with PET must have the capability to sort mixed plastics if they are to compete with exports. It is important that plants develop a mixed plastics capability – and they need to do something constructive with the other stream,” Mr Davidson said.
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