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Perhaps there is an alternative. Multiple recovered fiber grades continued to decline in price over the past month. How much of what we put in those bins really gets recycled? But others are being rethought entirely. An alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green Recycling in Maldon, Essex, rumbles back into life. Player utilities. Equipment such as shredders and granulators may be sold by a variety of companies. 'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish? Plastics – the Facts 2019 An analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data. At Recycling Technologies in Swindon, nearly all plastics can be turned into plaxx, an oil that can be used to make new plastic. It offers a variety of household products – from manufacturers including P&G, Unilever, Nestlé and Coca-Cola – in reusable packaging. Major plastic recycling equipment companies include Tomra. A major advantage to Loop’s business model, Szaky says, is that it forces packaging designers to prioritise durability over disposability. From there, the materials enter a labyrinthine network of brokers and traders. There are labels that say “Widely Recycled” (acceptable by 75% of local councils) and “Check Local Recycling” (between 20% and 75% of councils). Of this volume, we processed 352 000 tonnes of plastic waste and turned it into raw material and recycled products – breaking the 350 000 tonne barrier for the first time ever. There is the mobius loop (three twisted arrows), which indicates a product can technically be recycled; sometimes that symbol contains a number between one and seven, indicating the plastic resin from which the object is made. PVCMed Alliance shortlisted for healthcare award 13/01/2020. It’s too contaminated. For these materials, much of the recycling is carried out in the UK. “I think the best global estimate is maybe we’re at 20% [per year] globally right now,” says Roland Geyer, its lead author, a professor of industrial ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We want our waste hidden. ... 2019, 5:00 AM EDT LISTEN TO ARTICLE. It starts with materials recovery facilities (MRFs) such as this one, which sort waste into its constituent parts. Plastics. In the UK, recycling rates have stagnated in recent years, while National Sword and funding cuts have led to more waste being burned in incinerators and energy-from-waste plants. In the EU, an estimated 42% of plastic packaging waste was recycled in 2017. Green Recycling is a commercial MRF: it takes waste from schools, colleges and local businesses. That means lower volume, but better margins, as the company can charge clients directly and maintain control over what it collects. SA converted 1,842,745 tons of polymer (locally produced, imported and recycled) into plastics products. This report gives an insight into the plastics industry’s contribution to European economic growth and prosperity throughout the life cycle of the material. In future, Szaky anticipates that Loop will be able to email users warnings for expiry dates and other advice to reduce their waste footprint. ensuring waste is recycled properly. If you use more glass, more metal, those materials have a much higher carbon footprint.” The company recently launched a trial scheme with Tesco and is already working on a second facility, in Scotland. South Africa converted 337,745 tons of recycled material into new products. ... 21 Mar 2019, 8:00am Plastics 101: what you need to know about plastic in the environment. They hope to force the industry to invest in recycling infrastructure at home. By combining Loop with shopping at local zero-waste stores, Hills has helped her family radically reduce its reliance on single-use packaging. The benefits of automation, Smith says, are twofold: more material to sell and less waste that the company needs to pay to have burned afterwards. For example: Unilever is working on toothpaste tablets that dissolve into paste under running water; Häagen-Dazs ice-cream comes in a stainless steel tub that stays cold long enough for picnics. The product launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos and was an immediate hit. The Statement "Twelve per cent of our plastics are recycled in this country. Plastic recycling rates are highest in Europe at 30 percent. For more news, updates and information on the South African plastics industry, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest. But it doesn’t disappear. By Patrick Winn. So, the plastic recycling rate in 2015 was only 9.1%. Plastics—the Facts is an analysis of the data related to the production, demand and waste management of plastic materials. Westminster council sent 82% of all household waste – including that put in recycling bins – for incineration in 2017/18. The industry creates a further 58 470 income-generating jobs. Plastics South Africa: Here’s how much plastic was recycled in 2018 There is a lot of work to be done but South Africa is slowly turning the tide against plastic pollution. (The US, the world’s most wasteful nation, produces 2kg per person per day.) “We’re just looking at waste before it begins.”. “He’s picking three tonnes of waste a day that otherwise our human guys would have to leave,” Smith says. A materials recovery facility in Milton Keynes where waste is sorted. It is as if we have remembered that the old environmental slogan “Reduce, re-use, recycle” wasn’t only catchy, but listed in order of preference. Recycling tonnages have grown by 64% since 2009. Yet the plastic comes anyway, by default. Plastic production surged from 15 million tons in 1964 to 311 tons in 2014 — an increase of more than 2,000%. These Facts and Figures are current through calendar year 2015. “It’s really a complete myth when people say that we’re recycling our plastics,” says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, which campaigns against the illegal waste trade. Of this volume, we processed 352 000 tonnes of plastic waste and turned it into raw material and recycled products – breaking the 350 000 tonne barrier for the first time ever. Key statistics from latest recycling report, https://www.plasticsinfo.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Key-recycling-statistics.jpg, https://www.plasticsinfo.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Plastics-SA-Logo-1.png, © Copyright - Plastics SA | Site Design & Development by. Plastics recycling also saved 246 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions; the equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by 51 200 vehicles. They handle 58% of the country’s recyclate. The idea found its way to Griffiths, a former management consultant, by accident, after a mistake in a Warwick University press release. Other countries did the same, and by 2016, China was importing more than half of the world's plastic and paper trash. South Africa collected 519 370 tonnes of plastics for recycling in 2018 – 6.7% more than the previous year. There are opportunities at every point in the plastic life cycle: We can make plastic from renewable resources, manufacture goods that are recyclable and require less plastic, consume less, and make sure as much plastic is recycled as possible. The United States recycles just 9 percent of its plastic trash. Related Topics. Whatever the case, only 5% to 9% is being recycled effectively. Of the 67 million tonnes of waste we created in 2016-2017, we recycled 37 million tonnes. In 2017 it implemented a much stricter, permanent ban on non-industrial plastic imports. This number equals to 6.8% of total plastic waste generated in the U.S. that year. The policy shift was partly attributed to the impact of a documentary, Plastic China, which went viral before censors erased it from China’s internet. We are standing three storeys up on the green health-and-safety gangway, looking down the line. n alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green. Reality Check; image copyright Getty Images. ‘It’s going to be recycled in China!’ I hate to break it to everyone, but these places are routinely dumping massive amounts of [that] plastic and burning it on open fires.”. We show the price which may be paid, £ per tonne, for collected material for plastics recycling, including plastic bottles and plastic film - HDPE, PET and PP. In the UK, recycling is largely a success story, and the alternatives – burning our waste or burying it – are worse. • If you would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication). 05/11/2019. “The trouble started when, in the late 70s, we began trying to recycle household waste,” says Geyer. Household recycling requires sorting at a vast scale. “It all sounded good. The UK, like most developed nations, produces more waste than it can process at home: 230m tonnes a year – about 1.1kg per person per day. South Africa recycled 46.3% of all plastic products in 2018, whereas Europe only recycled 31.1%, making us a world-leader in mechanical recycling. Plastic waste treatment in Europe. Posted: Apr 18, 2019 5:26 PM ET | Last Updated: May 2, 2019 Recycling bins are pictured on a residential street in Ottawa, Aug. 17, 2017. Globally, 8.3 billion tons of plastic was produced from 1950 to 2015. Copy link. In October last year, a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation found mountains of British and European waste in illegal dumps there: Tesco crisp packets, Flora tubs and recycling collection bags from three London councils. Of all the waste produced in 2017, only 8.4% of it eventually got recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “We produce 200 to 300 tonnes a day,” says Jamie Smith, Green Recycling’s general manager, above the din. Since National Sword, sorting has become even more crucial, as overseas markets demand higher-quality material. August 2, 2019. Prosthetics are being made from recycled plastic bottles and lids around the world. In 2016, startup Precious Plastic … A crushed Tupperware container, the meal inside uneaten. South Africa currently recycles around 67% of all plastic PET bottles produced – this figure was 55% in 2016. For recyclers such as Smith, National Sword was a huge blow. About halfway, four women in hi-vis and caps pull out large chunks of cardboard and plastic films, which machines struggle with. In seven EU Member States, more than half of the plastic packaging waste generated was recycled in 2017. The U.S. used to ship about 7 million tons of plastic trash to China a year, where much of it was recycled into raw materials. As much as 30 percent of those single-stream recyclables was contaminated by nonrecyclable materials, Bourque says. Intrigued, Griffiths got in touch. Expectation of who is responsible for recycling vs. trust in them to do this properly (-2pts) (-1pts) (-2pts) (-3pts) (-1pts) Q2. In 2015, plastics comprised about 13% of total MSW. Olivia Sun/NPR The Mail also notes the amount of plastic being recycled rose more than eight percentage points in four years, with 46.2% being recycled or recovered in 2017. The plastics recycling industry provides direct, formal employment for over 7890 people. Through the procurement of recyclables, an estimated R2.3-billion was injected into the South African economy in 2018. Plastic bottles are very widely recycled – the vast majority of councils will accept them at kerbside or at recycling bring banks. In fact, the idea that plastics are refashioned into new products is largely a myth, Sharon Lerner writes in The Intercept . There is a low rumble in the air and a thick layer of dust on the gangway. “We need to stop shipping recycling abroad,” he says. “The price of cardboard has probably halved in the last 12 months,” he says. But much of that plastic isn’t recycled at all. Some of that happens in the UK, but much of it – about half of all paper and cardboard, and two-thirds of plastics – will be loaded on to container ships to be sent to Europe or Asia for recycling. So plastic only gets recycled the one time and can’t be recycled again. According to EPA reports, 2.1 million tons of plastic waste was recycled in 2008. The plastics sector is uniquely placed to meet the needs of a sustainable society and to deliver solutions to many challenges such as recycling, climate change, water scarcity, resource usage and energy recovery. Equipment vendors. Plastics SA recently released the latest recycling report that details the state of the South African plastics recycling industry. “Garbage is something that we want out of sight and mind – it’s dirty, it’s gross, it smells bad,” says Szaky. Most was single-use plastic, now discarded, and only 6% of the cumulative total has been recycled, the Science Advances study shows. What I like about it is that they have things I already use: olive oil, washing pods.” Hill describes herself as “pretty green: we recycle anything that can be recycled, we buy organic”. That company, TerraCycle, is now a recycling giant, with operations in 21 countries. This was contaminated with all sorts of undesirables: non-recyclable materials, food waste, oils and liquids that rot and spoil the bales. “It’s a small deposit, €3 [per container]. Popout; ... “Only some of what has gone overseas is actually recycled. “Our main products are paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, mixed plastics, and wood,” says Smith, 40. If you look at plastics, the picture is even bleaker. A momentous river of garbage rolls down the conveyor: cardboard boxes, splintered skirting board, plastic bottles, crisp packets, DVD cases, printer cartridges, countless newspapers, including this one. One great hope is chemical recycling: turning problem plastics into oil or gas through industrial processes. As a valuable and finite resource, the optimum recovery route for most plastic items at the ‘end-of-life’ is to be recycled, preferably back into a product that can then be recycled again and again and so on. “Loop is a not a product company; it’s a waste management company,” says Szaky. From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis, Last modified on Wed 23 Sep 2020 15.39 BST. In 2017, TerraCycle worked with Head & Shoulders on a shampoo bottle made from recycled ocean plastics. China’s rate is 25 percent. “He’s looking for plastic bottles first,” Smith says. South Africa recycled 46.3% of all plastic products in 2018, whereas Europe only recycled 31.1%, making us a world-leader in mechanical recycling. A photograph of a smiling child on an adult’s shoulders. Recycling aluminium, say, is straightforward, profitable and environmentally sound: making a can from recycled aluminium reduces its carbon footprint by up to 95%. Or, at least, that’s how it used to work. P&G found a way to take scrap polypropylene and turn it into virgin-like plastic that can be recycled into new bottles. The line at Green Recycling handles up to 12 tonnes of waste an hour. As a result, much of it remains unsorted and ends up in landfill. This number equals to 6.8% of total plastic waste generated in the U.S. that year. In fact, the robot has created a new human job to maintain it: this is done by Danielle, whom the crew refer to as “Max’s mum”. “Plastic packaging has actually done an incredible service for the world, because it has reduced the amount of glass, metal and paper that we were using,” he says. Gauteng has half of all recycling companies in South Africa. There is the green dot (two green arrows embracing), which indicates that the producer has contributed to a European recycling scheme. Compared with 2005, the recycling rate of plastic packaging waste increased by 18 percentage points (pp) in the EU (from 24% in 2005 to 42% in 2017). 1) Total U.S. plastic waste generation grows 3.8% per year (2015 vs 2014 growth rate from USEPA) from 34.5 million tons in 2015 to 38.5 million tons in 2018.2) U.S. plastic recycled remains equal to 2015 (0.94 million tons).There is no solid evidence that plastic recycling capacity or company purchases have increased since 2015. Top 5 plastic recycling companies in South Africa 2019 a year ago 14968 views by Nixon Aswani Plastics are by far the most common and highly used synthetic material, found almost everywhere including our homes, workplace, school, marketplace and beyond. But they are gone in a moment. Instead of giving up on recycling, Szaky says, we should all use less, re-use what we can and treat our waste like the waste industry sees it: as a resource. Customers pay a small deposit, and the used containers are eventually collected by a courier or dropped off in store (Walgreens in the US, Tesco in the UK), washed, and sent back to the producer to be refilled. Then came the Chinese crackdown of 2018. 9:00 AM EDT. Not the ending of something, but the beginning of something else. August 20, 2019 3:27 PM ET. Much of the plastic dropped in recycling bins isn’t being recycled. South Africa is amongst the best countries in the world when it comes to plastics recycling. How many are recycled? Wales had the highest recycling rate in 2017 at 57.6%. We overestimate how much plastic has been recycled: we think a quarter of all plastic waste (26%) is recycled when it’s actually just 9%; in fact, 79% of all plastic is still in the environment when we think it’s around half (54%). 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