We have arrived at our last R. With a new clear-sightedness about plastics and their flow into your life, hopefully you will soon have a lighter bin and a clearer conscience. The first seven Rs all have one thing in common: they are all about ways to pre-cycle – to head off plastics at the pass. If you’ve already used some of the tips in the preceding chapters, you are less likely to have been left flummoxed at the recycling bin because you will have Refused the bit of packaging with multiple heat-sealed layers of plastic. But two old clichés apply here: nobody’s perfect, and old habits die hard. If this is your first attempt at culling plastic in your life, you will almost certainly be left with some plastic to recycle.
I’ve been tough on recycling in this book, and that also implies being tough on myself. (After all, I partly define myself as being a good recycler – if it was socially permissible I’d probably put it on my CV.) As we already know, the recycling system across the UK is deeply flawed. But one thing we do have in our favour is that we have good access to recycling schemes, albeit of a variable and confusing nature, depending on location. The key here is to be the best and most effective recycler you can.
Here is my top tip for great recycling.
Relocate to Wales! If you really want to up your recycling rate, move to Wales. Seriously. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland do not appear among the top ten world leaders in recycling. Wales, on the contrary, ranks second in the global household recycling league table, narrowly beaten by Germany but ahead of South Korea. Wales manages a recycling rate of 63.8 per cent, by comparison to England’s rather weedy 42.8 per cent. This is especially impressive when you consider that twenty years ago, the newly devolved nation had a recycling rate of just under 5 per cent. Wales is now on track to meet its 70 per cent recycling target by 2025. The rest of the UK will struggle to reach its 50 per cent by 2020 EU target (a few years ago we all thought we’d reach this easily!).
So how did Wales become a recycling great? It seems that targets and goals really are important (there’s a lesson for us all here). While England scrapped local council and national recycling targets, Wales established statutory targets that local authorities must meet. Most have put kerbside recycling docks in place, and rather than in commingled collections where everything gets shoved into one green ‘mixed’ recycling bag, residents sort recycling at home into different boxes which they then put into the appropriate dock.
This system results in higher-quality recyclate – what our recycling becomes after collection, sorting and processing – and means that the local authority finds it easier to sell into the global market. Over the past five years in the UK as a whole, the quality of recyclate has dropped. And when we talk about China’s ban on our waste, we are really talking about a ban on low-quality recyclate. Admittedly the kerbside system means more boxes and bins and a bit more complication for us as householders, but ultimately it’s for the greater good.
In or out of Wales, embrace the fact you have many bins, rather than a commingled system. Not only will the authority get a higher price for the recyclate, but also more markets are willing to buy it.
I was interested to see for myself what was so special about Welsh recycling, so last year I took a trip to Conwy, the pretty market town on the north coast of Wales. It wasn’t my first trip there; the town has a castle that we were very fond of as kids. In those days I wouldn’t have toured the local bins and recycling centre but, hey, interests change!
Not everybody there was a fan of the council’s waste scheme. Some families told me that recycling had become a real chore: they had multiple bins (including for food waste), while black bag collections had decreased. Rubbish that couldn’t be recycled and destined for waste to energy incinerators or to go to landfill was now only being collected once every three weeks. Some felt there was a lot of stick and not much carrot – to my mind, this was because they hadn’t seen the carrot.
At Conwy’s recycling centre the policy was paying dividends. As plastic and cans were processed into bales, the quality of the recyclate was visible: the bales seemed to glint in the sunlight. This shouldn’t just be a matter of pride for residents; eventually they should also benefit through lowered council tax and better public services. If a local council’s recycling system is running well, there should be more money for other public services including schools, libraries and health centres.
TOP TEN RECYCLING TIPS
But, if a move to Wales is out of the question, how do the rest of us with our less-than-perfect local recycling systems aim for shiny, happy blocks of recyclate? Here are my top ten tips on how to be a great household recycler using your local authority system:
1 Lobby your local authority to change to a kerbside-sort collection system, where waste streams are separated.
2 Sort, sort and sort again Even if your local authority only offers commingled recycling, where you throw everything into one bag or box, don’t let this fact encourage a drop in your recycling standards. Even if it goes in the same bag, make sure it’s clean and dry, and be careful not to contaminate the contents with any bits of plastic or lids that you’re not sure about.
3 Do rinse out your plastics This makes your recyclables more pleasant and hygienic to hold on to until collection day. Also nobody wants to share their homestead with festering milk inside an HDPE pot, especially in summer.
4 Avoid Russian doll recycling By that I mean stuffing plastics inside other plastic containers. The main offending practice is putting straws and crisp packets into plastic bottles, and then replacing the cap. Increasingly MRFs (Materials Recovery Facility) are automated. Recycling is sorted by weight and air jets. By packing materials together, you confuse it, and your plastic will be rejected as contaminated.
5 Put the lids on bottles These are a different sort of plastic, but can be recognised in MRFs. Separated from bottles, lids are without a clear destination and are a total pain. They are also likely escapees if not attached to their bottle – the shape and buoyancy of lids mean that they are built for long voyages, and if they find their way into watercourses, they will travel and end up as an ocean pest.
6 Don’t worry about peeling labels off your plastics Unless your council’s instructions tell you to do so, this is unnecessary. Most waste is now separated at MRFs, where plastic that can be recycled is fed into a giant washing machine, and the heat and water will loosen the glue on labels and separate them.
7 If it’s bottle-shaped and clear plastic, get it in the recycling A cursory check on plastic drinks bottles, by turning them upside down and checking for the PET sign, will tell you that these are eminently recyclable. If you are out and about, don’t put empty plastic bottles in litter bins on the street – a number of local authorities do not recycle anything from litter bins (my council is one). Take them home and get them into your household collection. Otherwise it’s a missed opportunity to recycle.
8 Never put items containing batteries in your recycling Lithium ion batteries, used widely in mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and toothbrushes, are the biggest cause of waste industry fires.76 Obviously, you should aim to eliminate these at source (see chapter 10, Refuse, here), but if you are throwing out old battery-powered plastic toothbrushes, they are technically Waste Electronic items, so drop them at your local Household Waste Centre to be processed correctly. You might also find drop-off points for used batteries in some supermarkets.
9 VHS videotapes are not welcome in recycling Yes, they are plastic, but the tape can stretch to 400 m in length and is coated in chemicals. On every visit I’ve ever made to a recycling centre, I have witnessed the havoc these can cause on the processing belts as the tape is pulled loose and wraps itself around every piece of equipment. The belt has to be stopped and recycling is delayed while the machinery is cut free. In chapter 15, Waiting for the Sea Change, I discuss the developments afoot in recycling technology that in the future will be able to deal with tricky items like videotape, straws and multi-layered plastic, but for now you need to store your VHS tapes until these options become more widely available.
10 Leave tricky moulded plastic of uncertain polymer, or those marked #3, out of your recycling. This could be polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, and cannot be recycled as it is a contaminant. I always try to buy incidentals such as torches and screwdrivers from mainstream retailers who have committed to phasing out PVC in their packaging. But from time to time this stuff gets into your house – typically purchased from a garage – do not let it get into your recycling.
OTHER RECYCLING OPPORTUNITIES
While I’ve made it clear that I think companies and brands should be made to take more responsibility for the plastic they put out on the market, some do offer forms of recycling. Make use of them!
Ocado runs a Bag Recycle Bonus Scheme. While this doesn’t include the sealed packaging they use to deliver non-grocery items in their Fetch (pet products) and Sizzle (kitchen and dining ware) e-stores, you do get five pence for every plastic bag you return from your regular grocery shopping. You can hand back up to ninety-nine bags at a time, but don’t make the poor driver wait while you collect them all: have them ready on your next delivery. Bags are returned to the warehouse to be sorted and recycled into more bags – a good example of the superior closed-loop recycling discussed in chapter 13, Rethink, on here.
Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, the Co-op and Waitrose have collection points for plastic carrier bags and thin/flimsy plastic wrapping at their larger stores.
Tetra Pak has gone to town, and in nearly every town have established collection points for its packaging. Find your nearest collection point using their interactive map: http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/locator.asp
BUY RECYCLED
We’re only going to close the loop if we buy recycled products too. Currently this is pretty difficult – fewer than 2 per cent of items on the market contain post-consumer plastic waste (i.e., the stuff we’ve already used that has been through the recycling system). One of the barriers to getting more recycled products on the shelves is thought to be us – the consumers! We have a predilection for buying clean, clear plastic – especially when it comes to food and drink. We all need to learn to love murky plastic, a sign it has had a second life, and can go on to have a third and a fourth.
At present there are not enough opportunities for us to benefit directly from recycling our empties. There are too few incentives for consumers. As waste plastic is increasingly seen as a resource, and designers and companies step up to the challenge of closing the loop and making more stuff from recycled content, I believe this will change. Bath and beauty brand Lush is ahead of the curve on this. Ninety per cent of its packaging is made from recycled material, including all Lush bottles and pots. Collect your empties and return them to store for recycling. What’s in it for you? A free face mask!
Earlier I wrote that technically anything is recyclable. It is really a question of how much energy and money you are prepared to throw at the problem. Recycling company TerraCycle is testament to this fact. I first came across this innovative company that specialises in hard-to-recycle materials when I was reporting on pods for coffee machines. These are tricky little pieces of kit in terms of recycling: not only do you have an aluminium-foil pod, but you also have to grapple with the coffee grinds and a secretive thin film of plastic.
In 2015 the inventor of the original coffee pod, John Sylvan, said he regretted his invention because it was so unsustainable.77 Recently things have improved. As the original coffee pods fell out of patent, compostable and refillable alternatives came on to the market. But throughout, TerraCycle remained unintimidated and collected the old pods for recycling.
If you have a spare ten minutes, I urge you to spend it surfing the terracycle.co.uk website. It is much more fun than it sounds. The company’s recycling repertoire ranges from the niche – disposable painting overalls (made from a plastic fibre, like face and cleaning wipes); large plastic exercise or birthing balls made from vinyl; backpacks; and baby food pouches. The list of possibilities for these recycling experts is seemingly endless. In fact, the TerraCycle strapline just happens to be ‘recycle the unrecyclable’. You could, for example, fork out for an official cardboard recycling box, such as those for baby food pouches. Fill the box with your empties and when it’s ready, phone for a UPS collection. If this sounds like an amazing way to target and deal with any stubborn renegades that evade the 8R strategy, be warned – it’s going to cost you! Prices for a recycling box for baby food pouches start at £88.97, and for sports balls £97.20. This is definitely the deluxe route to turning the tide.
However, from time to time TerraCycle teams up with corporations or charities to tackle a particular plastic waste stream, including beauty product packaging, which is hard to recycle due to odd types of plastic, and empties that once contained cleaning products. These are much more affordable ways into their services. Keep an eye on the website, as a call will go out to register and become a collector/collection coordinator for a specific item, and to commit to collecting a certain amount. In my experience, however, these big recycling drives and other schemes funded by multinationals become oversubscribed very quickly.
It’s a good idea generally to keep an eye out for charity recycling initiatives that will ask you to send in or drop off particular plastic items. It’s always worth checking directly with the charity to make sure it’s legit. GHS Recycling (ghsrecycling.co.uk) based in Portsmouth are recyclers that partner with charities to collect plastic bottle tops from HDPE milk bottles. If you are planning your own collection on behalf of a charity, beware that they will only collect a minimum of 500 kg (which is a lot of bottle tops).
That’s it! We have reached the end of our 8R steps to curb plastic consumption. If you’ve followed each of the steps in sequence, you will be at least four weeks through the programme, and at least two rubbish cycles in (if you’re in Conwy in Wales, that’s six weeks!).
Now is a good opportunity to repeat your plastic diary and check your progress. Again, fill in the grid, but this time only for a few days – unless you see no improvement, in which case something has gone terribly wrong! But I’m really hoping you’ll notice a massive change in the amount of plastic in your bins. Hopefully, if you began with between eighty and 100 plastic items a week, you will have managed to halve that amount – at the very least.
The sense of satisfaction you’ll get from this reduction should motivate you to a) carry on, and b) deepen your resolve. I hope you’ll push on with your plastic reduction experiment until it’s not an experiment, but a normal way of life. I believe this is part of an overall Better Living Strategy. I’m not saying you have to combine it with yoga or wearing only organic cotton (although I do support both of those activities), but you will be experiencing other supplementary gains – less waste in your house, less stress, perhaps some weight loss from fewer snacks – in addition to the kickback you get from engaging in a positive solution to plastic waste.
But enough about what’s in it for you! In the next section, we’ll address how to amplify your efforts and plug into the global movement that’s going to reshape the way we view, interact with, use and reduce plastic in the near future and over the long term. We’re going to turn the tide together, and make it count.