Plastic film and bag recyling - is it real?

[Dave2002]

Most of us have got used to the recycling bins which are now prevalent in most areas in the UK - even though the details and colours of the bins, bags etc. may vary from region to region.

In the last few years there has been an emergence of bags - such as plastic bags, crisp packets etc, film with markings such as "Don't recycle at home", or "Recycle at large supermarkets".

Last year I got rid of a very large amount of polythene sheet, which had been used to wrap and transport loft insulation - as the local Recycling Centre has no way of dealing with it, but I did take it to the supermarket.

I have also been off loading various other packaging, though mostly mixed and much smaller in quantity than the polythene, at the local supermarket.

My question is - or at least one of them is - "are all these materials actually recycled?" This could just be green washing, to make us all feel good, or there could be some real recycling, but it might be difficult to do.

One option - though probably not the best - is to simply burn the material in a controlled way [to ensure there are no toxic products escaping] and use the heat, but that's not ideal.
Other ways would be to reform the different materials, maybe into new plastics, but that might be very hard to do, as there may be a lot of variety in the different bags and films which are put in the bins in the supermarkets.

So - does anyone know what actually happens?

[Pulcinella]

A quick google search threw up this article, which after a skim though suggests that it's worthwhile:

https://phswastekit.co.uk/blog/posts/what-you-need-to-know-about-soft-plastics-recycling

[oddoneout]

A slightly different view

https://www.everydayplastic.org/blog/2023/4/4/qb9xp8ka4slgcbw376n7fgqxzzrhri

[smittims]

My impression is that what, and how much, gets recycled depends on the system's ability to accept and absorb it. My workplace produced a large amount of waste paper and we recycled it until we were told there was a glut of waste paper and they couldn't take any more. Sometime ago I read a news article saying that a lot of supposedly re-cycled waste is actually shipped out to South East Asia and just dumped, and worse, someone is (of course) making money out of it.

We at home had got to the point where we were recycling almost everything and very little went into our fortnightly black bin. But our council has had to stop the free waste food and garden waste collection . A sad sight is the nuberof people who drive up to the street litter bins and dump large bags of household waste in them, much of which I'm sure could be recycled if they only made the effort.

[Dave2002]

I leaned a new word by reading one of the suggested articles above - "downcycling" - turning waste into something perhaps of lower quality or more restricted use than the original. Thus turning a crisp packet or poly bag into a different form of plastic used to make a hard shelf is considered downcycling. The final product is not the same type as the original.

That still seems OK to me though, if it actually happens and is useful to someone.

[oddoneout]

The whole business of waste management in this country is a mess, and it doesn't take much searching to find out the level of obfuscation(aka greenwashing in some cases) that exists.
Just 2 articles give some idea. The Greenpeace one shows vividly the effects of the out of sight out of mind approach to "recycling".
The Envirotec article is a bit dry, but the last paragraph does give an idea of how and why recycling rates can differ considerably depending on what is being measured.

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Trashed-Greenpeace-plastics-report-final.pdf

https://envirotecmagazine.com/2024/01/24/growth-in-plastic-packaging-recycling-being-shipped-abroad-including-non-oecd-countries/

This is another aspect of the ship it out, tick a box, sorted approach, which also involves petroleum based waste and the difficulties it poses

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2024/sep/24/where-does-the-uks-fast-fashion-end-up-i-found-out-on-a-beach-clean-in-ghana

A major problem is that while virgin plastic is available and cheaper there is no incentive to address the issue of the creation and disposal of the waste in the first place since any such measures cost more than just going for clean new material.
I don't know what the situation is now but paper recycling years ago suffered from the dumping at UK ports of virgin "post-consumer" waste paper(surplus unused newsprint etc) which obviously businesses took in preference to material from waste collections which had to be processed to be used for new products.
In terms of your council's withdrawal of free services that is presumably because the contracts they had to deal with food and green waste could not be afforded? However many(most?) councils in England charge for garden waste collection so is that something that has been considered? There was a government plan to to make garden waste collection free nationally but it was dropped after consultation

[Dave2002]

A major problem is that while virgin plastic is available and cheaper there is no incentive to address the issue of the creation and disposal of the waste in the first place since any such measures cost more than just going for clean new material.
I don't know what the situation is now but paper recycling years ago suffered from the dumping at UK ports of virgin "post-consumer" waste paper(surplus unused newsprint etc) which obviously businesses took in preference to material from waste collections which had to be processed to be used for new products.
In terms of your council's withdrawal of free services that is presumably because the contracts they had to deal with food and green waste could not be afforded? However many(most?) councils in England charge for garden waste collection so is that something that has been considered? There was a government plan to to make garden waste collection free nationally but it was dropped after consultation

In our council area - which is one of the largest in the UK [useful sometimes] the council has decided that general waste will be taken to the Dunbar Processing plant run by Viridor - there is.a video if you look hard for it.

https://www.viridor.co.uk/

That plant seems to filter some material, but then burn the rest.

https://youtu.be/CAsRKTRBVUQ?si=QDaj4h3LT6Ypn5Vz

It's over 200 miles away from here, and there are parts of this region which are probably 250+miles away. The claim is that even with the transport involved, this option is better than most others.

Glass recycling can be a pain up here - particularly for some people who don't have transport, as the council won't take away any glass. Glass bottles have to be taken to bottle banks, either in recycling centres, or near large shops.
Often the bins are overfull, which means either leaving the bottles etc. stacked up by the side of the bins, or doing a return journey later in the week.

Garden waste recycling is a bit iffy. In rural areas - such as we are - there is no garden waste collection - which can be a nuisance, particularly as the recycling center is not open on Sundays.
We try to do composting and other environmentally friendly ways of coping, but there is too much material for just one compost bin - or even three!

[french frank]

It's struck me that an enterprising council which invested in the necessary technology could make a profit out of accepting other authorities' waste. Alternatively, it might be a quick way to go bust.

Our Coop has a couple of (plastic) swing bins for (allegedy) recyclable plastic. As I can't think what else to do with it, I religiously deposit it in the swing bins.

[LMcD]

It's struck me that an enterprising council which invested in the necessary technology could make a profit out of accepting other authorities' waste. Alternatively, it might be a quick way to go bust.

Our Coop has a couple of (plastic) swing bins for (allegedy) recyclable plastic. As I can't think what else to do with it, I religiously deposit it in the swing bins.

Very interesting report on this subject on BBC1's Breakfast programme this morning, starting at 08.18.

[vinteuil]

.
'Most soft plastics in supermarket recycling schemes incinerated'

"The majority of soft plastics given to supermarket schemes ended up either being converted into pellets that are burnt for fuel or sent to incineration facilities in the UK, Netherlands and Sweden, the investigation found"

... from an article in The Times this morning.

And The Guardian article -

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/01/soft-plastic-collected-for-recycling-burned-tesco-sainsburys-campaigners

.

[Dave2002]

Very interesting report on this subject on BBC1's Breakfast programme this morning, starting at 08.18.

Definitely worth watching that. Probably should be extracted and saved by the BBC as a short clip for keeping up awareness.

Now there's still confusion. So now we know that food contaminates the plastic, which makes one wonder about how clean the plastic has to be to be recycled. However we do know that some is washed and shredded, and there are processes to make use of the material. Some is turned into bin bags - which seems OK if that's the best use of it. Some is burnt - which might still be OK if the heat is useful.

Now we also observe another source of contamination - Apple tracking tags!

[oddoneout]

Definitely worth watching that. Probably should be extracted and saved by the BBC as a short clip for keeping up awareness.

Now there's still confusion. So now we know that food contaminates the plastic, which makes one wonder about how clean the plastic has to be to be recycled. However we do know that some is washed and shredded, and there are processes to make use of the material. Some is turned into bin bags - which seems OK if that's the best use of it. Some is burnt - which might still be OK if the heat is useful.

Now we also observe another source of contamination - Apple tracking tags!

There is currently no "good" solution to the plastics problem so my own view is that it is necessary to go for the least bad. Any processing to produce material that can be used to make other materials uses resources such as energy and water, and may result in additional pollution problems. The use of plastic bottles to make fabric, for instance, adds to the microplastics problem, and shifts the waste problem along to fast fashion/discarded clothing.
Proper incineration(ie correctly set-up and managed plants) to produce heat for district heating or to produce energy still seems to me to be the least bad solution, but is the one most likely to be rejected, often due to misinformation that mobilises public protest. All the objections(pollution, traffic increases around the plant, not "green"etc) apply to all the other processes, but because they happen elsewhere(largely abroad in countries that can't cope and/or don't have adequate controls) such negatives can be conveniently put in the "out of sight, out of mind" bin.
As I have always argued, so long as attention is focused on throwing away(whether directly through general waste or indirectly through recycling) any solution is a losing battle. The focus needs to be as much(arguably more) on preventing material becoming waste in the first place as dealing with the waste. Government recycling targets imposed on councils may reduce waste to landfill, but the resultant hodgepodge of solutions, depending on how the councils meet those targets( which contracts for taking material for recycling are chosen and how much money a council can justify spending on a solution) makes for confusion and eventually a level of non-compliance with the public, and also just shifts the problem elsewhere. Whether that "elsewhere" is an adequate solution is another matter altogether, and not one that I suspect councils are generally inclined to check out too closely, if at all, especially given the hopeless local government funding situation. Just get rid has to be the priority.

[Dave2002]

Triggered by looking at another link from above, I found this:

https://packagingeurope.com/news/tesco-adopts-paper-packaging-for-pocket-tissues/10820.article

Now is that really better? I don't know. Paper is a lot more energy intensive and environmentally damaging than many people realise, though it can be recycled, or burnt at the point of use - for those of us who still have any form of fireplace or burner.
I suppose some low grade but not too disgusting paper can be kept and used to help burn garden waste - but again that only works for people who have gardens and who use bonfires or incinerators to clear unwanted wood etc.

[smittims]

It's no surprise that some 'green' ideas are not as 'green' as they sound. Plastic, for instance,is very useful, as people have found for decades. It's only a problem when you dispose of it. If you keep using it again and again it's greener than using and disposing of paper or bamboo alternatives.

I remember a cabinet minister who, on his first day, ordered all his tropical hardwood furniture removed and destoyed and replaced by 'sustainable' wood . It would have been 'greener' to keep using it until it fell apart.

[Dave2002]

I
I remember a cabinet minister who, on his first day, ordered all his tropical hardwood furniture removed and destroyed and replaced by 'sustainable' wood . It would have been 'greener' to keep using it until it fell apart.

Par for the course sadly. Not a cabinet maker, then! Though using green wood for cabinets probably wouldn't have worked well.