{"id":1939,"date":"2018-01-03T21:41:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T21:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2018-01-03T21:41:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T21:41:52","slug":"good-news-britain-has-an-acute-plastics-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=1939","title":{"rendered":"Good News: Britain Has An Acute Plastics Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a waste-import ban by China, Britain has a window of opportunity to begin real progress on tackling the plastics crisis.\u00a0 The same may apply to some other countries.<\/h3>\n

As the recycling industry and the UK media started pointing out around New Year, mountains of plastic waste will soon be piling up all over Britain, with nowhere to go.\u00a0 \u2018Waste meltdown<\/em>\u2019 said The Sun, \u2018impending crisis\u2019 wrote The Independent<\/em>.<\/h3>\n

It seems to me that the best immediate response should be to simply stop selling plastic bottles.\u00a0 Not a complete solution but a feasible and big step in the right direction \u2013 towards a phase out of non-essential uses of plastic.\u00a0 (See more below).<\/h3>\n

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It\u2019s an acute political problem.\u00a0 Politicians will seek a quick fix, and as being seen to act effectively will take precedence over anything else, so left to its own devices the UK Government(s) may well forgo the opportunity to do what is really needed, which is to start reducing the production of plastic pollution.<\/p>\n

On a business-as-usual basis, the obvious \u2018easy options\u2019 are to burn the waste, and maybe fend-off concerns about pollution from incinerators by saying that this is what many other European countries do, or to find somewhere else to \u2018export\u2019 to, maybe in SE Asia or Africa.\u00a0 \u00a0Of course in theory those countries could say \u2018no\u2019 but there may be large financial inducements not to.\u00a0 Most of it would then end up as pollution, as was happening in China. \u00a0Extract from Communications and Strategy Challenges Of The Plastics Issue<\/a> (Dec 21 2017):<\/em><\/p>\n

Isabel Hilton editor of China Dialogue told the BBC World Service<\/a> \u2018World Update\u2019 on 5th<\/sup> December 2017 that \u201conly ten percent\u201d of the plastic waste \u2018sent for recycling\u2019 in China \u201cis actually recyclable\u201d, and \u00a0\u201cthe rest tends to get dumped in China, it finds its way into rivers, and eventually into the sea, and that has prompted the Chinese authorities to impose a ban on several varieties of plastic\u201d.\u00a0 Asked what this meant for countries exporting plastic waste to China, Hilton replied: \u201cthe rest of the world finally has to face up to its own problem\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pretty reliable rule of campaigning that it\u2019s hard to get much done about slow-developing problems, or \u2018soft disasters\u2019, and this one was a long time coming<\/a>. \u00a0Big changes in direction tend to come about through disruptive events, often disasters and accidents.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an extract (p 183) from my book How To Win Campaigns<\/em>: Communications for Change<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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UK Environment Minister Michael Gove has been making waves<\/a> through his sudden apparent conversion to greenery.\u00a0 To the frustration of officials, in several Departments, he is known for liking to \u2018think differently\u2019. \u00a0Here then is \u00a0a Gove opportunity.\u00a0 He\u2019s backed deposit returns for plastic bottles but this is in a different league. \u00a0China\u2019s decision to stop taking in much of Britain\u2019s plastic waste and other \u2018recyclate\u2019 was signaled as long ago as July 2017 but it seems to have caught the Brexit-obssessed UK Government by surprise.\u00a0 As to campaigners, they might wait years for an opportunity like this, and such opportunities are very hard to create, while this one has come along thanks to China.<\/p>\n

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These are the bare bone facts, from<\/a> authoritative environmental intelligence magazine ENDS Report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

China has implemented its decision to ban the import of 24 kinds of solid wastes \u2013 a move which is stoking fears within the UK recycling industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

The ban<\/a><\/em>, which came into force on 1 January, covers eight categories of plastics waste, all unsorted mixed papers, 11 types of textile wastes not including clothing and four types of metal slag.<\/em><\/p>\n

A further ban<\/a><\/em>, set for April, will set new standards limiting all imported recycled materials to a maximum contamination level of 0.5%, a percentage that is seen as impossible to achieve across the board by many in the UK\u2019s waste industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Around 70% of the UK\u2019s mixed paper recyclates and 25% of plastic packaging are currently exported to China, according to WRAP, and the proposals have caused alarm within the UK waste industry<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s somewhat feeble plastics recycling capacity will choke on many thousands of tonnes of plastic, mostly packaging and mostly PET bottles, which now has no outlet.<\/p>\n

Householders trying to \u2018do the right thing\u2019 and be \u2018green\u2019, may be dismayed to see mountains of plastic spilling out of depots run by the unfortunate Local Authorities tasked with collecting it and hitting recycling targets.\u00a0 The recycling industry is furious. What may have seemed a long-term problem is fast becoming a very short term problem.<\/p>\n

The UK can\u2019t scale up its recycling capacity quickly but it does not need to, and should not anyway.\u00a0 Instead it should start towards a phase-out, and the very top of the list, as numerous NGO campaigns have highlighted, is \u2018single use plastic’, and at the top of that list in terms of scale of impact, avoid-ability, feasibility, and non-essential-ness, would be plastic bottles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nobody needs soft drinks or water in plastic bottles.\u00a0 Supermarkets could clear their shelves of them like a product recall, and switch off a huge flow of plastic pollution.\u00a0 Walking down the aisles of one local supermarket yesterday I noticed that many drinks now seem to be available in cans as well as in plastic bottles, and multipacks of those cans seem to be wrapped in cardboard.\u00a0 So maybe the drinks industry has anticipated something like this?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The same product (top and middle) in plastic bottles and in cans<\/em><\/p>\n

Britain also has more or less universal supply of excellent tap water, and thanks in no small part to campaigns, there are lots of stylish metal water bottles now available for those who may need to carry water around with them.\u00a0 For the consumer, it would be an easy option, compared say, to avoiding plastic film wrapping on food, although as Andy Clarke, the ex-boss of ASDA told The Guardian<\/a> last October, that packaging will have to go too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of how much is invested in Britain\u2019s recycling infrastructure, virtually all plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later. Once there, it will remain on the earth for centuries.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is vital that the UK packaging industry and supermarkets work together to turn off the tap.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andy Clarke<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Clarke is right.\u00a0 \u2018Recycling\u2019 can\u2019t resolve the plastics crisis, for reasons of \u2018leakage\u2019 into the environment and the effects of \u2018downcycling\u2019, such as turning PET from bottles into polyester fleeces or carpets which then in turn break up to create microplastics.\u00a0 It can only be useful in the context of an active phase-out<\/a>.\u00a0 As scientist Roland Geyer has said<\/a>, \u2018in the long run, recycling reduces waste generation only if it reduces primary material production; otherwise, it merely delays it\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

We need to get rid of plastic as a major use material.\u00a0 Clearing the shelves of plastic bottles is a good place to start, and this \u2018waste crisis\u2019 is an opportunity too good to waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a waste-import ban by China, Britain has a window of opportunity to begin real progress on tackling the plastics crisis.\u00a0 The same may apply to some other countries. As the recycling industry and the UK media started pointing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1950,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/1950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}