Recycling crisis

THE Chinese ban on the importation of plastic waste has been a blaring wake-up call for Britain’s recycling industry.

We had been shipping a colossal 500,000 tons of plastic to China for disposal every year and the head of the UK Recycling Association says he has no idea how that much extra waste will be dealt with.

In the long term – as this paper has said many times – we must radically reduce the use of plastic in our society, through such measures as bottle deposit schemes and possible toxicity taxes.

But the recycling industry and the Government must also put all their energies into working out a short-term solution to the crisis caused by the China ban. With families throwing away 114,000 tons of plastic packaging this Christmas alone, the situation couldn’t be more urgent.