‘Recyclable’ has always meant just that to the consumer, so why has it taken the plastics processing industry until now to ensure what is labelled ‘recyclable’ is really and truly ‘recyclable’, rather than something that is merely ‘technically’ recyclable.
Rose Brooke
Recyclable
Recyclable means recyclable
I often get quizzed by friends about what plastics can be recycled, what cannot, and why. With their questions in mind, I thought I’d try and draw a diagram to help people I know to sort their plastics for the waste stream to share on social media.
My advice is often left muddled when, going by my knowledge of the technologies available and what my own domestic recycling service offers, other schemes or local authority restrictions contradict me. Plastic film, which is recyclable, will not be accepted by my local recycling service, but you can take plastic film to some supermarkets for their own schemes. So is it recyclable or not? The answer is yes - if you read the small print. Nevertheless, I tried to jot down a roadmap for plastics recycling.
I began sketching a flow chart mapping the way for what plastic packaging is and is not recyclable last week. The flow chart became too tricky with all plastic packaging types out there, so I started again and redrew it just for rigid plastic packaging. And even then, rather than drawing clear arrows from each product indicating that ‘yes, this can be recycled’, and ‘no, this cannot be recycled’, I found myself falling into the nebulous world of ‘check your local recycling service’. In the end, I had to scrap the flow chart because, frankly, the road to a circular economy is littered with potholes.
Transparency, I believe is a massive driver for progress, and now Plastics Recyclers Europe and The Association of Plastic Recyclers has made its joint announcement defining ‘recyclable’ once and for all, we can finally all read from the same page.
The reinforced definition of ‘recyclable’ for plastics is now as follows:
· The product must be made with a plastic that is collected for recycling, has market value and/or is supported by a legislatively mandated programme.
· The product must be sorted and aggregated into defined streams for recycling processes.
· The product can be processed and reclaimed/recycled with commercial recycling processes.
· The recycled plastic becomes a raw material that is used in the production of new products.
Great stuff. But my response to this (amid the slaps on backs the industry revelled in following the announcement) was very similar to my response to the British royal family changing the rules of succession in 2013 so royal princes aren’t given preference over princesses in the line to the throne.
Back then, I was saying: ‘It’s 2013! We shouldn’t be congratulating anybody for doing something now that was so long overdue.’
In the context of this heroic definition of what is recyclable to plastics, I repeat: ‘It’s 2018! We shouldn’t be congratulating anybody for doing something now that was so long overdue.’
The fact is, this definition has been put in place because too many brand-owners and manufacturers have been guilty of complacently labelling their products and even greenwashing their products for too long. This definition is for we, the industry, not for consumers, who for the most part are trying their best to be conscientious and green when they make their purchases and sort their rubbish every week.
Given the confusion so many consumers face the night before their bins are collected, or at the recycling depot, not to mention instruction to recycle on the label versus the contradictory services offered by various recycling facilities across Europe, it is little wonder there is so much confusion about plastic recycling at consumer level, leading to both apathy towards recycling and a mistrust of plastics.
Transparency should already be in place and plastic packaging should be labelled recyclable only if it really will be recycled if it is channelled through the routes available to it as waste. The amount of plastic packaging that is left behind because it isn’t actually recyclable by definition is astonishing – but that, my friends is transparency. And transparency drives progress.