Speaking at a Recoup conference on plastics recycling – which also heard some of the latest thinking on mixed plastics – Lee Marshall, chair of recycling officers organisation Larac, said: “It may taken 10 years but we will see standardisation of collection across the UK.”
His prediction came in response to questions from the audience about the problems caused by different approaches to recycling adopted by local authorities.
We will see standardisation of collection across the UK
Lee Marshall – Larac chair
Mr Marshall, who is also responsible for waste services in Powys, said that “local authorities range from very rural to urban and different approaches can suit different local authority areas.”
The second view that similar collection methods will be taken-up came from Stuart Foster, senior project manager for Recoup. He saw a move to wheeled bin collection schemes for household materials, and said: “We fully expect the wheeled bin container to be the collection method of choice in the next few years.”
Bottles
The conference, held at London's Methodist Central Hall, then discussed bottle recycling and mixed plastics.
On bottles, Mr Foster said that the UK could hit a recycling rate as high as 35% for plastic bottles in 2008 and that a figure of 35% would mean 180,000 tonnes of bottles would be collected. The most recent estimates for plastic bottles are in the order of a 25% recycling level for recent years, according to Defra.
“This level of collection,” said Mr Foster would save 7.5 million cubic metres of landfill space and fill 7,000 empty Wembley stadiums.” However, he warned that despite increases in collection, “UK bottle processing infrastructure is outweighing supply.”
Mixed plastics
Both Mr Foster and Mr Marshall expressed some scepticism about mixed plastics recycling as it is today.
Mr Foster (Recoup) said that councils “need to apply due diligence, don't collect mixed plastics unless you know where the markets are.”
He said that as many as 70% of about 80 councils who collect mixed plastics don't know where the material is going although it is most likely going to Asian export markets. He continued: “For mixed plastics there are three key areas to get right: collection, handling and end markets; and we need all three to run in tandem. There is a big issues about what is mixed plastic packaging. We still get bottles and non plastic packaging in loads and can get 15% of this as waste.”
He pointed to work being undertaken by WRA{P which has identified that many sorting techniques already exist including using near-infrared technology and flake separation.
However, he cautioned “it is something of a struggle to prove it [mixed plastics recycling] can work.”
Responding, audience member Doug Anderson of Leeds-based Intruplas said that he would like to see local authorities and the construction industry creating end markets for products made from mixed plastics. His company uses about 20% of post-consumer waste in products such as paving slabs and seats although only a small amount is in the form of used yoghurt pots and similar items.
Benefits
Mr Marshall (Larac) said that plastics recycling has a big benefit to local authorities. “It reduces volume in residual waste and makes it easier to have alternate weekly collections.”
And, he said that kerbside collection of plastics brings higher volumes, but disadvantages are that space is take up in collection vehicles.
On mixed plastics, he said: “I think local authorities need to stand up and be a bit more honest about their mixed plastic collections – some of which are going to landfill.”
He added that to help plastics collections, “we need to see more income from the PRN system filtering down to local authorities. Plastics are not biodegradable so we will not face landfill penalties for them.” And, he warned that there is a lot of “smoke and mirrors about the costs of plastics recycling.”
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