The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has identified that the main barrier to increased plastic bottle recycling in the UK as the cost of collection and sorting of the bottles from the municipal waste stream. And the organisation is now offering financial support to create automated sorting capacity. With this financial support, which would not exceed 50% of the cost of the project, WRAP hopes to double the current UK's plastic bottle recycling capacity.
WRAP said that the facility or facilities, which must be located in the UK, need to recover 20,000 tonnes of waste plastic bottles a year. The new capacity should come on stream during 2003 and reach full capacity by the end of 2005. A ramp up will be agreed which would specify intermediate tonnages. WRAP is accepting proposals that rely on the reconfigeration of existing facilities as well as new projects.
In a new study commissioned by WRAP, Opportunities for Bottle Recycling, collection scheme economics has been identified as one of the key challenges which needs to be addressed to increase plastic bottle recycling. The study estimates that plastic bottle collection schemes delivering mixed bottles to regional facilities which employ automatic identification and sorting technology would cost no more than 100 per tonne, lower than the current costs of collection and disposal, which is around 170 per tonne.
Expansion
Jennie Price, chief executive of WRAP, said: “This is a significant opportunity to increase the levels of plastics recycling in the UK. It will tackle the problem of high collection and sorting costs, one of the key barriers which currently makes the recycling of post-consumer plastics unattractive to many local authorities. It will underpin the much needed expansion of the UK’s plastics recycling infrastructure and also stimulate an increase in reprocessing capacity.”
But there has been concern from some sectors of the industry that investing in processing capacity may not make the best use of WRAP's money. The used plastic market is still suffering as a result of low oil prices and depressed demand from the Far East. Prices for used bottles are currently 90 – 130 for clear and light blue PET, 0 – 50 for coloured PET, 100 – 140 for HDPE, 10 – 20 for PVC and 10 – 30 for mixed.
One recycling manager told letsrecycle.com that companies were “stocked up on plastics” because of the poor export market. He said that prices are lower because of the decline in virgin prices although some tonnages were still being sent to the Far East.
Another plastics recycler told letsrecycle.com: “The export market is dire. China simply doesn't want it. The market has collapsed.”
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