Plastic straws to be banned within year
Telegraph discovers recent household rubbish from Britain as Kuala Lumpur freezes new waste licences
PLASTIC straws, stirrers and cotton buds will be banned within a year under government plans, Michael Gove will announce today, as part of the war on throwaway plastics.
The sale and distribution of more than 4.7billion straws used in restaurants and bars annually will be prohibited under the proposals, which are due to come into effect between October 2019 and 2020.
The Environment Secretary said last night the ban was a significant step in the fight to tackle the “devastation” caused to the world’s oceans, as he pledged to leave the environment in a better state for future generations. “Today we step up our efforts to turn the tide on plastic pollution and ensure we leave our environment in a better state than we inherited it,” Mr Gove added.
“I commend retailers, bars and restaurants that have already committed to removing plastic straws and stirrers. But we recognise we need to do more.”
It comes as an investigation by The Daily Telegraph today reveals that British recycling and household waste has been found dumped in Malaysia.
The rubbish, which includes Morrisons’ milk cartons, supermarket carrier bags and recycling bags from five UK councils, was designated for reprocessing but has apparently been discarded by waste companies in the southeast Asian country. The disclosure will fuel concerns that since China’s ban on importing waste from other countries last year, UK companies have started to dump waste in poor countries amid pressure to hit recycling targets. Separately, this newspaper revealed last week that the export ban to China has caused costs to spiral for local authorities, with several leaving recycling waste to build up because they cannot afford to process it.
The Local Government Association is warning that unless manufacturers contribute more towards the increasing cost of recycling, local councils will not be able to keep up with demand.
The Government’s latest announcement follows a series of measures put forward by ministers in recent months to tackle Britain’s “throwaway culture”.
They include the recent proposal to double the plastic bag charge to 10p, following an 84 per cent decline in their use.
British rubbish sent for recycling and other household waste have been found dumped in Malaysia, The Telegraph can disclose.
Plastic products sold in the UK that are intended for reprocessing have been apparently discarded by waste companies at several sites around the south-east Asian country.
Reporters from The Telegraph and Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative unit, found bales, including an envelope with an address in the North of England, Morrisons’ milk cartons and supermarket carrier bags outside a waste facility in the west of Malaysia.
Many of the shopping items seen had use-by dates within the next year or two and the letters displayed date stamps which suggest the waste has only recently been sent to the sites.
All of the items bore the recyclable logo. However, experts warned that it was unlikely that the items could be processed because they had probably become contaminated during the sorting or shipping process, or because they had been left outside.
Empty recycling bags from five UK councils were also seen in a recently closed-down factory immediately alongside one dumpsite, which will raise concerns that items from households across the UK are not being processed correctly. Two of the councils denied that any of their waste was shipped to Malaysia and two others said they used licensed contractors who were regularly inspected. It remains unclear how the bags bearing the councils’ logos arrived in Malaysia.
The news comes as the country announced that it has issued a blanket freeze on handing out licences for any new recycling factories because of the amount of waste that is being sent from Western nations.
Last Tuesday, Yeo Bee Yin, the environment minister, pledged to outlaw the import of non-recyclable plastics, citing fears that Malaysia could become a “dumping ground”.
The country is now the biggest importer of UK plastic waste following China’s ban on importing the products from other countries because of concerns over environmental pollution. After the Chinese ban, campaigners became concerned that European nations would start dumping their waste in poor countries because of pressure to hit recycling targets – including the UK, which is expected to miss agreements to recycle 50 per cent of household waste by 2020. Our reporters and Unearthed found dozens of items of commonly used British products at sites across Malaysia earlier this month.
At one facility in Jenjarom, waste from British high street stores was found in huge piles at recently closed-down facilities. Reporters found Tesco carrier bags, a Sainsbury’s bag for life, Kingsmill bread bags and Fairy washing machine tablet containers.
The recycling bags from British councils – Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Castle Point, Basildon and Tower Hamlets – were found in a covered area of the site. They were empty.
At a different site in Telok Panglima Garang, also near Jenjarom, reporters found evidence that foreign plastic materials had been burnt at an open landfill site, situated next to commercial prawn ponds.
Fishermen tending the ponds claimed plastic waste had been incinerated there several times a month until recently and suspected their stocks had dwindled because of toxic fumes that had made them feel sick. A putrid smell still emanated from charred garbage and fetid, black pools of water dotted around the landfill. It is not clear how the waste ended up over 6,000 miles from Britain. It is illegal to send waste that cannot be recycled outside the UK.
Questions were also raised about how some recycling facilities in the country might be operating illegally. Kuala Langat council officials said there had been a sudden upsurge in illegal recycling factories in Malaysia since the Chinese government introduced its ban. Nordila Yasir, the council’s head of enforcement, said: “There are 54 recycling factories. Only 14 have licences. We first received complaints about the illegal factories on Apr 25. The complaints were about the pollution of air and water. We cut the utilities on their operations. Only one is still operating.”
A spokesman for Hammersmith and Fulham council said that none of their waste was shipped to Malaysia and Basildon council said that none of the recyclable waste was exported.
Castle Point said that they deliver their waste to a licensed contractor who decided where it is sent for processing. They said that it was also possible that residents had disposed of recycling bags outside the council’s household waste collection.
Tower Hamlets said that they used a contractor who shipped items to “licence-holding reprocessors”, who “comply with EU law”. Kensington and Chelsea failed to respond to questions.
Louise Edge, Greenpeace UK’S senior oceans campaigner, said: “These shocking pictures of UK household recycling dumped in illegal sites thousands of miles from home expose just how serious our plastic waste crisis is. Unless we cut off the stream of plastic at the tap, we won’t stop the overflow of waste spilling out all around us, from Britain’s shores to illegal dumps halfway around the world.”
‘Shocking pictures of UK household recycling dumped in illegal sites thousands of miles from home expose how serious our waste crisis is’