The survey carried out by plastic recycling organisation Recoup – entitled the ‘UK Household Plastics Packaging Survey' – showed that the total amount of plastic bottles recycled in 2008 was 216, 067 tonnes out of a total of 557,000 tonnes of plastic bottles consumed.
The 216,067 tonnes represents an 18.1% increase on the 181,887 tonnes of plastic bottles recycled in 2007. In total, the survey showed that 238,768 tonnes of plastic packaging – including mixed plastics – was collected in 2008.
A total of 404 respondents – made up of councils, waste management firms and reprocessors – answered Recoup's request for information about volumes and types of plastic material collected from the kerbside, bring sites and on-the-go-recycling facilities.
John Simmons, chief executive at Recoup, said: “In 2008 approximately 40% of plastic bottles from the household waste stream were collected for recycling. With the high level of infrastructure now in place to collect, sort and bale plastic bottles a key challenge for the UK moving forward is to increase household participation and achieve higher recovery rates.”
Method
The survey found that the bulk of plastic material (168,966 tonnes) was collected at the kerbside, which represents a 13% increase on 2007. The total number of local authorities offering kerbside recycling of plastic packaging was shown to have increased from 304 in 2007 to 321 in 2008, covering a total of 18.1 million households.
And, the survey indicated that councils using disposable bags to collect plastic bottles had a marginally higher average performance rate for volume-per-household when compared to wheel bins and boxes. However, the survey also demonstrated that average household participation rates by container type was higher for councils operating wheel bins, with an average 84% participation.
In assessing the different kerbside collection models, the report stated: “Recoup do not advocate one collection type over another, as there is clear evidence to show that all approaches can achieve suitable quality levels if the handling and sorting facilities are correctly configured and operated.”
“It is acknowledged that mechanisms such as reducing refuse collection frequency is likely to encourage higher scheme participation,” it added.
The survey also identified that 44,181 tonnes was collected at bring sites and household waste and recycling centres, while 2,920 tonnes of plastic packaging was collected through on-the-go recycling services. Recoup claimed that more facilities had become available during 2008 in response to Defra promoting the practice in 2007.
Mixed
Recoup, for the first time in 15 years of the survey, asked for additional information from local authorities and waste management companies on the types of plastic that they were collecting for recycling and found 22,701 tonnes of non-plastic bottle packaging (‘mixed plastics') was reported as recycled.
Of the 380 local authorities to respond to the survey, 49 said that they were actively collecting ‘other plastics' (identified as pots, tubs and trays) at the kerbside, while 35 were using bring banks.
Recoup claim that the 22,701 tonnes, which is 9.5% of the overall plastic collected, represented a 109% increase on mixed plastic recycling figures for 2007 and also said it believed that the 2008 figure may have been “understated”.
Recoup identified that the increase in councils adopting mixed plastic schemes could have been fuelled by increased media attention and consumer requests.
Despite the “steady increase” in rates of mixed plastic recycling, councils responding to the survey explained that there were still a number of concerns about the quality of mixed plastic material, the security of end markets for that material and whether the merits of mixed plastic collection were outweighed by the need for greater bottle collection.
MRF
Materials recycling facilities were also assessed with regards to the current activities surrounding the sorting of plastic packaging.
Looking at adapting information from 15 respondents to fill the wider picture, Recoup suggests that 8% of MRFs have automated plastic bottle sorting, 33% provide manual segregation of plastic bottles, 52% perform no plastic bottle segregation and 7% do not process plastic bottles within the MRF.
Recoup highlighted the development of dedicated plastics recycling facilities (PRFs), which it claims could help sort mixed plastic from plastic bottles and improve the quality of material being sold to end markets.
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