7 March 2008 - China s ban on plastic waste shows the need for the government to invest in plastics recycling, argued key UK industry figures.
While China has not said why it imposed the ban it is thought the move is designed to halt the flow of low grade plastics material into the country.
Post consumer waste plastic collected as co-mingled requires sorting and can have high levels of contamination. The association labour costs of sorting this material in Europe is high, which makes exporting this work to countries with lower labour costs attractive.
China s shock ban on plastic waste imports came into effect on 1 March and the confusion was compounded over the lack of clarification over materials it covers.
But PRW s sister titles Plastics News and Plastics News China were quickly able to confirm that the ban refers to post consumer plastic bags, film and web.
As the majority of plastic collected in the UK is plastic bottles the ban might not be as far reaching as first thought.
Spokesman for the Carrier Bag Consortium (CBC), Peter Woodall, said China s ban was: Yet another opportunity for Gordon Brown to stop preaching about plastic bags and focus on the really important issue of waste management.
Politicians are very keen to tax because it creates income but very slow to invest in waste infrastructure.
Director general of the British Plastics Federation, Peter Davis, agreed: the root of the problem for the UK is not plastic bags. It is the lack of a centralised waste management system for the country.
He argued that waste management strategies were in abundance . But he added: implementation of all this falls flat at the first hurdle. This is because the implementation is in the hands of a complex patch-work of local authorities, each with different priorities, each with a different balance of rural and urban areas, population densities and transport networks. Each are doing and saying different things.
Both Davis and David Tyson, ceo of the Packaging and Films Association, argued that the UK needed to seriously consider energy from waste.
Tyson thought it possible that the China ban could have opportunities for UK recyclers although the full impact of the ban is far from clear. But, he added, the lack of initial clarity over what the ban covered will have created chaos particularly for those plastics shipments that had already set out to sea before the ban was announced.
While China has not said why it imposed the ban it is thought the move is designed to halt the flow of low grade plastics material into the country.
Post consumer waste plastic collected as co-mingled requires sorting and can have high levels of contamination. The association labour costs of sorting this material in Europe is high, which makes exporting this work to countries with lower labour costs attractive.
China s shock ban on plastic waste imports came into effect on 1 March and the confusion was compounded over the lack of clarification over materials it covers.
But PRW s sister titles Plastics News and Plastics News China were quickly able to confirm that the ban refers to post consumer plastic bags, film and web.
As the majority of plastic collected in the UK is plastic bottles the ban might not be as far reaching as first thought.
Spokesman for the Carrier Bag Consortium (CBC), Peter Woodall, said China s ban was: Yet another opportunity for Gordon Brown to stop preaching about plastic bags and focus on the really important issue of waste management.
Politicians are very keen to tax because it creates income but very slow to invest in waste infrastructure.
Director general of the British Plastics Federation, Peter Davis, agreed: the root of the problem for the UK is not plastic bags. It is the lack of a centralised waste management system for the country.
He argued that waste management strategies were in abundance . But he added: implementation of all this falls flat at the first hurdle. This is because the implementation is in the hands of a complex patch-work of local authorities, each with different priorities, each with a different balance of rural and urban areas, population densities and transport networks. Each are doing and saying different things.
Both Davis and David Tyson, ceo of the Packaging and Films Association, argued that the UK needed to seriously consider energy from waste.
Tyson thought it possible that the China ban could have opportunities for UK recyclers although the full impact of the ban is far from clear. But, he added, the lack of initial clarity over what the ban covered will have created chaos particularly for those plastics shipments that had already set out to sea before the ban was announced.
