Plastic Recycling Needs to Catch Up with Paper Recycling
December 3, 2007 — tone4u
DEFRA (department for environment food and rural affairs) Statistics show that, whilst the proportion of plastic packaging that is recycled has increased since 1998, it still has a long way to go before it catches up with paper recycling.
The DEFRA statistics show that in 1998 125,539 tonnes of plastic packaging waste was recycled. This represents about 8% of the total plastic packaging waste arising in that year. In 2004 the volume of plastic packaging waste that was recycled had risen to 344,317 tonnes which is estimated to be about 19% of the total plastic packaging waste in that year.
Looking at the same figures for paper shows 1,894,086 tonnes of paper waste recycled in 1998 which is estimated to be about 47% of the total that might have been recycled. In 2004 2,539,206 tonnes of paper waste was recycled this being 68% of the paper waste that could have been recycled.
It is clear that there is a big difference between the figure for plastic and paper with only 19% of potentially recyclable plastic being recycled and 68% of paper. There is a long way to go before plastic recycling even matches the current levels of paper recycling.
Many towns and cities in the UK are now attempting to make free plastic carrier bags a thing of the past. Perhaps more should be done to enable and encourage householders to recycle their plastic packaging instead of sending it all to landfill.
