Waste cost fear over China ban
CHINA’S ban on imports of plastic waste will make it more expensive for Bridgend council to collect residents’ rubbish.
The authority has admitted the ban, which cuts off a major export market and reduces the value of waste plastic, is “highly likely” to send the cost of its waste contract up.
The statement comes after the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), Debbie Wilcox, warned local authorities would lose money because of the ban as there are now fewer places to sell recyclable waste to.
A WLGA spokesman said that the impact on local authorities “will depend on the terms of the contractual arrangements they have negotiated”.
The UK has been shipping up to half a million tonnes of plastic to China for recycling every year. But the Chinese have now banned what they termed “foreign garbage”.
Last year Bridgend signed an £82m, sevenyear contract with private company Kier to collect household rubbish and recycling. Kier also runs the county’s community recycling centres.
The authority said it does not make any money directly from the sale of plastic recyclate, but it does “share a 50:50 risk with Kier of recyclable materials increasing or decreasing in value each year”.
This means that when the value of recyclable material goes up the waste contract costs them less.
It’s understood that as China’s ban is expected to decrease the value of plas- tic recyclate Kier is likely to lose money and Bridgend council will have to pay more for the waste contract, although it does not yet know how much that will be.
A Bridgend council spokesman said: “Plastics collected in Bridgend County Borough are sent to various locations for recycling. Some are processed in the UK, while others are exported abroad. But regardless of where the plastics are processed for recycling, the Chinese ban is almost certain to have a negative effect on the value of waste plastics globally.
“The value of recyclable materials is benchmarked every April, and because we contract our waste and recycling collection service to Kier, we share a 50:50 risk with them of recyclable materials increasing or decreasing in value each year.
“It is too early to say specifically what the financial impact will be for us, but it is highly likely that our waste contract will cost us more following China’s decision. However, it will affect us less than if we ran the collections ourselves as we’ll share the burden with Kier so there will be a potential financial hit for us both.”
A WLGA spokeswoman said: “Local authorities gather a range of materials from households and then sell or pass them on to reprocessors for recycling.
“Some of this reprocessing takes place in Wales – for example much of the food waste collected is now treated in facilities within Wales and turned into compost. Likewise there are facilities in Wales or elsewhere in the UK dealing with other materials, such as paper, metals, glass and plastics. Some of the companies that take materials from local authorities throughout the UK do export materials to be recycled.
“China has been an important destination for these materials. China produces many of the goods sold in the UK and therefore has been a ready market for these materials, with ships bringing goods one way and taking recyclable materials on return journeys.
“The import ban by China inevitably will have an impact as it has been an important export market for some companies taking materials from local authorities. The companies involved have already been developing exports to alternative markets such as Malaysia and Vietnam.
Over time, Welsh Government is keen to develop more reprocessing facilities in Wales as part of a more localised ‘circular economy’.
“In the meantime, it is important that the good progress made to date with recycling in Wales is maintained. It is better in terms of resource efficiency to continue to collect recyclable materials for domestic reprocessing, and to seek new export markets for them, than to see the import ban as a reason to revert to treating these valuable resources as ‘waste’.”