Plastic recycling targets ‘unachievable’
New plastic packaging recycling targets set by the UK government are unachievable and potentially counterproductive, says a leading industry body.
The British Plastics Federation (BPF) says a proposal to increase plastic packaging recycling to 56.9 per cent by 2020 is ‘not achievable in less than 10 years’. The new targets detailed in a consultation paper entitled ‘Implementing the Packaging Strategy’ represent a 32 per cent increase in the amount of plastics packaging the government wants to divert away from landfill.
The BPF says it is fully committed to diverting plastic packaging away from landfill but that the increase tabled by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) ‘would not be possible, even if there was a necessary huge investment in the recycling infrastructure and standardised local authority collection, sorting and recycling systems which we do not have’.
It adds that Germany, which introduced an active plastics recycling scheme 15 years ago, has only achieved a 42 per cent recycling rate.
The BPF also warns that the imposition of such a strategy could hit both companies and the environment.
“Such a high target risks pushing the UK into recycling which is uneconomic and has environmental disbenefits through heavy use of energy and water, it says.
The organisation now hopes that responses to the consultation will revise the target to 50 per cent plastics recycling which ‘although a major challenge is achievable and based on sound science’.
