Plastic recycling rises by 20%

RECYCLING rates for plastic have risen by 20 per cent, Government figures reveal.

However, overall recycling in the UK has shown little improvement, edging up to .6 per cent for 2016 from .3 per cent a year earlier.

The slight rise is still lower than the .9 per cent achieved in 201 .

Green groups welcomed the increase in the amount of plastic packaging being recycled – from 8 2million tonnes in 201 to around 1.02billion tonnes in 2016 – but pointed out that more than half of all recyclable waste, 5 .5 per cent, still ends up in landfill or gets incinerated.

A staggering 15million tonnes of waste was sent to landfill or incinerated that could have been recycled – a huge waste of resources, campaigners said.

The amount of recyclable waste not being recycled is also growing – up 226,000 tonnes in 2016 from the previous year. This is due to an increase in the volume of waste being created.

Chris Tuckett, of the Marine Conservation Society, said: ‘The increase in plastic packaging recycling is positive, but there’s still a long way to go. We are choking our oceans with our plastic, killing marine wildlife and affecting our own health.

‘The public has made it clear that the situation can, and must, change. It is vital the Government listens and responds by simplifying recycling labelling and getting manufacturers on board with banishing single-use plastics.’

The Environmental Investigation Agency’s Sarah Baulch said: ‘We need to get drastic on plastic. The Government must take radical and decisive action to change our reliance on single-use plastics.’

She added: ‘With China’s slamming of the door on contaminated UK recycling, and people across the country increasingly appalled at the impacts of plastic pollution, these recycling statistics are another damning indictment of the Government’s ineffective laissez-faire approach to waste.’