Paul Davidson, WRAP's materials sector manager for plastics, explained how WRAP's plastics programme will start by looking at ways to increase the amount of plastic bottles that are collected in the UK. He explained the need to focus on plastic bottle recycling first because they are the easiest plastic to recycle in the post consumer waste stream.
Mr Davidson said that the problem with plastics recycling was not in finding markets but in collecting enough bottles as local authorities are often put off by the cost. He said that there is a strong need to make plastic bottle recycling economically viable.
“There are plenty of markets, the problem is supply. Local authorities cannot get the price to recover the cost of collection, they lose money on every tonne they collect. We need to increase the amount of material that is available for recycling and at a price that will cover the cost of collection.”
There is wide scope for increasing the amount of plastic bottles recycled in the UK as each year, 450,000 tonnes of plastic bottles are thrown away and last year only 11,500 tonnes were recycled. Mr Davidson said that the price of plastic bottles will not be influenced by an increase in supply as the UK market is currently affected by imports and exports and said: “We want to encourage material to stay in the UK rather than seeing it shipped all over the world.”
Currently, there is automated bottle sorting activity in three areas of the UK. The materials recycling facilities at Sompting, west Sussex and Hurn, Dorset are already using automatic sorting equipment and an automated plastic bottle sorting machine is also being commissioned at the Milton Keynes MRF.
10,000 tonnes
Mr Davidson outlined WRAP's plans for increasing the collection of plastic bottles by part-funding an automated plastic bottle sorting plant which would process 10,000 tonnes of plastic bottles a year and this would almost double the amount of bottles that are currently recycled in the UK.
Mr Davidson said that WRAP is looking at separating the bottles because they are expensive to collect and it is therefore important to sell separate polymer types to get as much value out of them as possible. He said: “Even if you don't sort, plastic collection is still very expensive.”
Currently most bottles are manually sorted which is costly. As the economics of autosorting are far more favourable, a higher price can be paid to the local authorities which should encourage more to set up collection schemes.
Mr Davidson said: “Local authorities have to increase their recycling rate and selling mixed bottles to an auto sorter should be very attractive to them.”
By part-funding, WRAP hopes that it will reduce the risk for a company thinking of putting an autosorter in the UK. The automated sorting plant is initially likely to receive bottles from a wide area and will sort bottles using infrared with compressed air jets forcing bottles into different bins. The machine would process 35,000 bottles an hour.
The project has not yet been approved, but a proposal should be put to WRAP's board in November. If the project goes ahead, it will be subject to European state aid clearance and Mr Davidson said that he hopes a tender to be awarded by next summer.
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