Yesterday I visited a plastics recylcing plant where plastic is recyled into material that can be used again in a manufacturing process. It's all very well putting recylable logos on to products to try and establish green credentials but it is important to ensure the material is actually used again rather than just sent to landfill. The process of getting it right is complex with a need to segregate different plastics, to clean the material and then make it in a form that can be reused. The simplest material available is plastic drink bottles (as shown in the photo on the left) but only 23% of those used in the UK are recycled. At the plant I visited they produce a top quaility product (seen in the photo on the right) which is so good that it commands 80% of the price of virgin material, with much ending up in automotive components such as car bumpers. I was surprised to learn that one of the problems the plant faces is actually sourcing the right quantity of material since much is being shipped from Britain to China for two reasons. Firstly low labour rates in China enable hand sorting of material which means that this then doesn't need to be done here where the cost is much higher; and secondly because the hugh imbalance of trade between the UK and China means that many sea going containers return to China empty and so the cost of filling and sending the container is low. I concluded that there needs to be more joined up thinking, education and communication between original producers, users of plastic products, local authorities who collect the material once used and recycling companies such as the one I visited for the whole process to succeed.
