Plastic recycling delay puts 846,000 tonnes of carbon savings at risk

March 2027 was due to be a milestone in plastic recycling. But the government has confirmed that it’s no longer the date from which councils in England will have to collect items such as bread bags, crisp packets and plastic film.

Instead this rule will come into force on 1 April 2030. The decision could put up to 846,000 tonnes of potential carbon savings at risk.

Bin boffins at BusinessWaste.co.uk have calculated what the three-year delay could mean if flexible plastics continue to go into general waste rather than recycling.

How much flexible plastic does this impact?

The FlexCollect project, which tested flexible plastic collections across ten council areas, estimated that just over 150,000 tonnes of flexible packaging could have been collected from households during 2027.

Using the 150,000 tonnes figure as a baseline, this means that by 2030, the delay could affect over 450,000 tonnes of plastic.

The carbon estimates use WRAP’s CarbonWARM2 figures for plastic film and DEFRA data on England’s municipal residual waste treatment.

Around 71% of this waste goes to energy recovery facilities, while 29% goes to landfill. Applying that split to the 450,000-tonne estimate produces a potential carbon difference of between 734,600 and 845,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, compared with recycling.

However, this is just an estimate, as some councils may introduce flexible plastics collections before 2030, and supermarket take-back schemes may also continue. How much plastic is ultimately affected will depend on household participation and whether enough facilities are available to sort and recycle it.

This estimate does show what could be at stake if the delay continues to see flexible plastic thrown into general waste.

Why the delay to collections?

The waste industry has warned that the UK does not yet have enough sorting and recycling capacity to deal with the amount of material that national collections would generate.

In addition, some councils have also raised concerns about the cost of changing collection services and whether they would have reliable places to send the plastic. Collecting more material would achieve little if recycling plants were unable to take it, so the delay gives the government and the waste industry another three years to address the shortfall.

Mark Hall, Simpler Recycling expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

The delay makes sense if councils cannot be confident that the plastic they collect will actually be recycled. Asking households to separate material only for it to be rejected or burned would quickly damage trust in the system.

But with over three years until the 2030 deadline, the government needs to set annual milestones for new sorting and reprocessing facilities, alongside clear information on where collected material will go to avoid further delays closer to the time.

For this to be effective, businesses also need certainty, as recycling facilities require time and investment, which may be prevented without clear plans. More can also happen in this time: councils that already have suitable recycling facilities shouldn’t be discouraged from introducing collections earlier, and retailers should make their take-back points easier to find and use.

The packaging itself also needs improvement. Manufacturers should use the extra time to simplify designs, remove unnecessary layers and avoid using hard-to-recycle materials. If the material being placed on the market continues to be difficult or uneconomical to process, simply changing the collection date will not solve the issue.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Source link