Low capture rates impact on UK plastic bottle recycling

In the UK Plastic Bottle Recycling Survey 2004 published this week, Recoup found that while six out of ten local authorities now offer plastic bottle collections, only 5.5% of plastic bottles in the UK waste stream are being recycled.

Recoup said it was “not enough” for local authorities to offer recycling services that include plastic bottles – action needs to be taken to improve capture rates.

”There is a need to improve active schemes through the adoption of good practice and use of effective promotion.“
– Stuart Foster, Recoup
Data supplied by 477 UK local authorities during November 2003 revealed that there has been a 50% growth in the number of local authorities offering kerbside or bring bank collections in the last two years.

There are now 3365 plastic bottle bring banks in the UK and 22% of households now have access to kerbside collections. But the WRAP-funded survey said only 25,000 tonnes of plastic bottles are being recycled from an estimated total of 460,000 tonnes in the waste stream.

Commenting on the survey's results, Recoup project manager Stuart Foster said: “Although it is important to encourage the remaining areas to initiate a plastic bottle recycling service, there is a need to improve active schemes through the adoption of good practice and use of effective promotion.”

Fortnightly
Switching to fortnightly refuse collections seemed to be one way to increase capture rates according to the survey. It said that with fortnightly recycling collections, introducing refuse collections to alternate weeks generated on average 15% more material per household each year.

While fortnightly recycling collections showed only “marginally better” capture rates than weekly recycling collections for plastic bottles, monthly collections recovered 40% less bottles by weight than weekly or fortnightly.

Associated costs for bring bank recycling schemes were reported at about 150 to 300 per tonne of plastic bottles. Costs for kerbside schemes that included plastic bottles were inconclusive, although some councils estimated costs of 5 to 50 per tonne.

Recoup predicted that collections would rise to about 33,000 tonnes of plastic bottles each year by the end of 2005. It also said that the number of UK households provided with kerbside collections would rise from the current 5.4 million to 6.4 million by 2005/06.