快猫短视频

THE grim piles of plastic waste blanketing riversides and burning next to roads around the Turkish province of Adana didn鈥檛 take long to trace back to other countries. An in March found single-use carrier bags, yogurt pots, milk bottle labels and other items with UK supermarket labels among the material at 10 sites of illegally dumped rubbish.

In response to images of the despoiled landscapes released on 17 May, the Turkish government announced a ban on all imports of key types of plastic waste to take effect in early July.

The ban is the latest door that has closed for the UK and other high-income countries that export much of their plastic waste. China, once a major importer of UK plastic for recycling, banned imports in 2018. Exports then switched to other South-East Asian nations before many also imposed bans, eventually leading to 39 per cent of the UK鈥檚 plastic waste going to Turkey last year.

鈥淭he worry now is it鈥檒l be 鈥榩ass the parcel鈥� with the UK鈥檚 plastic waste,鈥� says Nina Fasciaux at Greenpeace UK. In the short term, the Netherlands and Malaysia are next on the list as possible candidates for these exports, once the Turkish ban begins, she says.

鈥淟onger term, we should absolutely be dealing with our own plastic waste within the boundaries of the UK,鈥� says at UK waste charity WRAP.

Call for export ban

Greenpeace UK wants the UK government to ban plastic waste exports by 2025. So how could the UK, and other rich countries in a similar position, do that?

There are two directions to come at the problem. The first is to slash how much plastic the UK generates. WRAP calculates that in 2019 it was , half of which was recycled, with 61 per of that via exports. The UK has the capacity to recycle 1.3 million tonnes of plastic a year.

The second way is to boost this recycling capacity. However, a review last September found that of all the ways to reduce plastic pollution at a global level, the biggest savings came from curbing demand, rather than better recycling and waste management (Science, ).

鈥淯ltimately, the problem of plastics is not so much one of waste, but one of production. The solution to a world drowning in plastic refuse requires questioning the need for plastics and reducing their manufacturing in the first place,鈥� says at Imperial College London.

One major quick win would be for the UK to ditch plastic packaging on fresh fruit and vegetables. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 because, by and large, you don鈥檛 need to replace it with anything,鈥� says Bird.

Unfortunately, hygiene concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic have reversed a trend of shoppers opting for loose produce over packaged, she says, citing anecdotes from supermarkets. Another obstacle is that the material is voluminous but light, and most UK supermarkets鈥� plastic reduction targets are based on weight, so there are smaller gains to be made from promoting loose produce. WRAP research due to be published soon is expected to show that plastic-wrapped produce contributes to people buying more than they need, leading to food waste 鈥� another huge source of carbon emissions.

To curb demand, manufacturers of everyday products are exploring novel ways to ditch single-use plastic packaging, from solid bars of shampoo rather than liquid in bottles to toothpaste tablets rather than a paste in tubes, says Fasciaux. Bird says such redesigns 鈥� rather than just substituting single-use plastic for another material 鈥� are the future.

In recent years, some firms have switched to plastics that are biodegradable and compostable. But the infrastructure to recycle these at large scales isn鈥檛 there, says Bird. Such alternatives also often end up in the wrong bins and sometimes don鈥檛 break down as intended, she adds. If they end up in the sea, they may not degrade for years.

鈥淲e should absolutely be dealing with our own plastic waste within the boundaries of the UK鈥�

For products with little alternative to single-use plastic, recycling can be boosted by firms using just one plastic rather than several materials bonded together, which hinders or prohibits recycling. For example, Mars Food, the UK branch of the US firm, started a trial this year using recyclable mono-polypropylene plastic for its microwave rice pouches in Europe.

Decreasing demand

One promising sign is the move towards a reuse-and-refill culture. The idea isn鈥檛 new 鈥� health food shops and some small chains have been offering refills for decades 鈥� yet it remains small scale across the UK, says Bird.

What is new is that supermarkets are getting in on the act. Asda has opened a 鈥渟ustainability store鈥� in the north of England that offers refill points, and Aldi began trialling refill stations in April for pasta and rice.

Carrying armfuls of glass jars or plastic containers for an entire weekly food shop is unlikely to ever be practical, though. US company Loop, owned by TerraCycle, thinks the answer is prefilled and refillable packaging for shampoo, spices and other products that can be easily returned for collection and industrial cleaning before being used again. The company offers services in the US, Canada, France and Japan, and launched an online trial in the UK last July with supermarket Tesco.

From September, the firm鈥檚 products will be available in Tesco stores. Tom Szaky, TerraCycle鈥檚 CEO, says Tesco鈥檚 buying power and influence, combined with Loop鈥檚 growing economies of scale, should lower prices that were relatively high when 快猫短视频 looked at the service. For example, 650 grams of Loop fusilli pasta was 拢2.50 even after the refundable deposit was deducted, while 500 grams of another brand was 53 pence in Tesco.

Still, Szaky adds that reuse is secondary to lowering consumption generally. 鈥淭he elephant in the room is: buy less,鈥� he says. No experts expect single-use plastic to be eliminated entirely, but the ongoing efforts combined with UK government policies could generate waste that would be easier to recycle (see 鈥�What is the UK government doing?鈥�). Greenpeace UK estimates that a 50 per cent cut in plastic use would allow the UK to end plastic waste exports, without building extra recycling facilities.

at the Environmental Services Association, whose members include UK recycling firms, supports a ban on plastic waste exports. But he thinks 2025 is too soon, as a fall in demand may not materialise and it will take time to boost recycling capacity.

One challenge is that some plastic materials, particularly those used for milk and soft drinks, are valuable, so plenty of UK recycling facilities are dedicated to them. But materials known as flexibles, which include the film used to package fruit and vegetables, are far less valuable, so tend to be what is exported. If a full export ban took effect, the UK would need more recycling capacity for flexibles.

A potential solution is chemical recycling, where materials are broken down to their constituent parts, but the approach is still a way off. 鈥淭hat sort of technology is at least five years away from being delivered at commercial scale,鈥� says Hayler.

There are signs the UK is on the right track. In the first quarter of this year, 30 per cent more plastic was recycled domestically compared with this period in 2020, according to figures from the National Packaging Waste Database. Yet they also show that the UK isn鈥檛 yet reducing demand, with the total weight of plastic waste up by almost 4 per cent over this same period.

With Turkey鈥檚 door shut, UK plastic bags, yogurt pots and more will be exported to another nation in the short term. Most will be recycled properly, but there will inevitably be further shocking cases of illegal disposal. Longer term, the UK鈥檚 position is untenable, says Fasciaux: 鈥淔rom a moral position, it鈥檚 our waste and needs to stay in the UK.鈥�

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