UK’s plastic piling up as China bans our waste

RECYCLING bosses have warned that they will struggle to cope after China imposed a ban on imports of plastic waste.

About half a million tonnes of plastic has been shipped to China every year by councils and other UK organisations.

But yesterday China’s government imposed a ban on ‘foreign waste’ as part of a drive to upgrade its industries.

The move has raised fears more waste could be dumped or stockpiled in the UK because of a lack of recycling and waste facilities to process it.

Officials said the Government was examining the impact of the move and whether more waste could be recycled in Britain. But the UK Recycling Association said it had no idea what the short-term solution was. Chief executive Simon Ellin said: ‘It’s a huge blow, a gamechanger for our industry. We’ve relied on China for so long for our waste. We simply don’t have the markets in the UK.’

British firms have shipped more than 2.7million tonnes of plastic waste to China and Hong Kong since 2012, according to Greenpeace.

That amounts to two-thirds of our total plastic waste exports.

Councils said the China ban could mean a greater use of incineration. Peter Fleming, of the Local Government Association, told the BBC: ‘Clearly there’s a part to play for incineration but not all parts of the country have incinerators.’

The Daily Mail’s Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign has called for a reduction in plastic waste entering our waterways, and ministers are drawing up plans for a tax on single-use plastics.