China’s Jan 1 plastic ban already leading to waste piling up in UK

CHINA’S ban on importing millions of tons of plastic waste is already causing a build-up of rubbish at recycling plants around the UK, experts have warned.

The decision to do away with “foreign garbage” – which means that half a billion tons of the toxic substance could be burned in Britain rather than exported – is predicted to cause chaos for councils in the coming weeks.

Simon Ellin, the chief executive of the UK Recycling Association, said his members had already seen lower grade plastics piling up and warned urgent action was needed.

“You can already see the impact if you walk round some of our members’ yards,” he said. “Plastic is building up and if you were to go around those yards in a couple of months’ time, the situation could be even worse.”

The leaders of the UK’S recycling industry admitted that they have “no idea” how to cope as China’s policy came into force on Monday. Britain ships around two thirds of its used plastics to China for recycling – about 500,000 tons – each year.

The ban means councils will have to send much of its waste for incineration or landfill unless an alternative market is found. Mr Ellin said many UK recycling businesses stopped shipping plastic to China in the autumn because of fears it might not arrive before the deadline.

“We have relied on exporting plastic recycling to China for 20 years and now people do not know what is going to happen,” he told The Guardian. “A lot of (our members) are now sitting back and seeing what comes out of the woodwork, but people are very worried.” He warned that the ban could have severe consequences for council recycling in the UK in the short term.

“If it no longer pays for our members to take this waste and sort it once it has been collected by councils, then that might stop,” he added.

“That might mean that councils no longer collect recycling in the same way. It could be chaos, it really could.”

In 2016, China processed 7.3million tons of plastic waste – half the world’s recycled plastics. UK recycling firms are now having to look to Malaysia and Vietnam for their exports.

However, these are unlikely to have the capacity to make up for the lost Chinese market. Recoup, an organisation that recycles plastics, said the ban could lead to the stockpiling of plastic waste and a move towards incineration and landfill.