UK faces “waste plastic mountain” if export market declines

Centriforce Products Ltd, which produces plastics for making fencing, picnic tables, benches and bins, is warning of a “mountain of plastic waste” that could arise if markets abroad decline.

Cllr Roy Oldham, leader of Tameside borough council (left) and Barry Keeling of Centriforce with a bench and a bin made from recycled plastic bottles.

Barry Keeling, sales manager at Centriforce, said that the loss of UK manufacturing resulting from the lack of material available for the domestic market will mean there is no safety net if demand for plastics from China dries up.

Mr Keeling said: “The Chinese market may be buoyant now, but things can change quickly. If the export market declines and the UK manufacturing base for these products has been lost due to the lack of raw material supply, local authorities will have direct responsibility for the mountain of plastic waste, for which there would be inadequate demand.”

Adding to the lack of control over markets, Mr Keeling pointed out that local authorities exporting material could also face the “likelihood of containers being rejected or returned to the UK” because of Chinese shipping controls.

Tameside
Centriforce has been a plastics reprocessor for 28 years and has now installed a state-of-the-art optical sorting plant at its Liverpool factory to process waste plastic bottles.

The company has been working with Tameside council near Manchester to close the recycling loop for plastic bottles by turning collected material into products for use by borough residents.

“We take their bottles and convert them into high quality board and profiles, which are then fabricated into the fencing, picnic tables, benches and bins which have become a popular feature throughout the borough.”

Mr Keeling said his company wanted to expand further and create more jobs, but UK plastics producers like his were now facing a shortage of post-consumer plastic bottles.

“When we see statements on publicly-funded websites describing the benefits of shipping this material to China – without any reference to UK alternatives – we known that the time has come to act,” he said.