Don’t stop recycling, minister urges council

Coffey pleads with local authority not to tell households to put plastic waste into rubbish bins

‘Households will find it strange that items which were once target recycling materials are not wanted’

THE environment minister has urged Britain’s first council planning on stopping recycling mixed plastic to change its mind, it can be revealed.

Last month, Swindon Borough Council sparked fears that UK recycling is going into reverse, as it announced plans to tell households to put mixed plastic items, such as yogurt pots and plastic trays, in the bin with regular waste.

Council bosses said they wanted to stop collecting so-called “low-grade” plastic because it often ends up in landfill or being illegally dumped instead of being recycled.

Now Therese Coffey MP has written to Swindon council urging it to continue kerbside collections, suggesting instead that it simply tell households that their efforts to sort and clean plastic may be a waste of time because it may never be recycled. She said: “Clear communications are essential and while I understand your concerns about the uncertainty of what happens to recycling once exported, this would suggest the need for clearer communications about the end destination of exported plastics, rather than stopping certain kerbside collections completely.”

She said she found Swindon’s proposals particularly concerning because its own recycling rate has already fallen by 12 per cent since 2010 to 38 per cent, at a time when the UK is under pressure to improve to meet EU targets. A rate of 38 per cent puts it among the worst councils in the UK. Maureen Penny, the council’s cabinet member for highways and the environment, said: “No decisions have been made with regard to how we deal with our plastic waste and our wider strategy on how we deal with all our waste will be considered at next month’s Cabinet meeting.” Adam Read, of Suez, one of the UK’S biggest recycling plants, said: “Refusing to collect certain low-grade plastics has got to be a very last resort, as it sends a wrong message to households that they can simply throw things in the bin after years of getting them into the recycling habit, even if those items are tough to recycle.

“Households will find it strange that items which were once target recycling materials are no longer wanted.”

Experts warned the move could undo years of progress on reducing black bag waste as people would slip back into old bad habits. Swindon’s proposals come as plastic recycling waste has been building up in the UK since China stopped importing it last year. The problem is worsening as another big plastic importing country, Malaysia, where this newspaper found huge mountains of UK recycling waste illegally dumped, has also shut its doors to plastic waste.

In addition to Swindon, the problem has also led to Basingstoke borough council taking the decision yesterday to close all 29 of its mixed plastic “bring banks”. In Southampton, plastic left in bins will be removed in the next two weeks and incinerated to generate energy for the National Grid.

When Swindon Borough Council became the first local authority in the country to announce it was minded to stop recycling mixed plastics, many householders must have given a silent cheer. After all, what was the point of sorting all those pots and wrappers into bins when nothing was being done with them?

Swindon was simply taking an honest approach by telling its residents to put mixed plastics into black waste-bags with other rubbish to be converted into industrial fuel. Since China stopped taking the UK’S plastic waste last year, it has accumulated. Plastic recycling was no longer environmentally friendly nor cost-effective, and there were suspicions it was just ending up in landfill overseas, defeating the entire point. The reality is that for years, authorities in Britain were content to ship refuse abroad without making the proper investment in recycling plants.

However, Therese Coffey, the Environment Minister, has called on the council to think again. She takes the view that even if the waste is now being stockpiled, the time will come when it can be disposed of properly. Moreover, if other councils follow Swindon’s example, then people will get out of the habit of recycling plastics, which as everyone should know by now can seriously damage the environment.

She has a point. But this cannot just be a target-based tick-box exercise. There needs to be some rationale behind the policy. The recent Budget imposed a new tax on plastic packaging containing less than 30 per cent recycled material. The way forward is to provide the plants for recycling low-grade plastics, but above all to reduce the use of the product in the first place.