{"id":213421,"date":"2025-10-10T04:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/213421\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T04:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:23:11","slug":"britain-missing-out-on-potential-2bn-recycling-industry-by-exporting-plastic-waste-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/213421\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain missing out on potential \u00a32bn recycling industry by exporting plastic waste | Recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

A plastic recycling industry potentially worth \u00a32bn and 5,000 jobs is dying in the UK because of government failure to close a loophole that allows 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to be exported each year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Guardian can reveal that in the past two years 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down due to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap plastic from Asia, according to data gathered by industry insiders.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s exports of plastic waste to developing countries increased by 84% in the first half of this year<\/a>, in what critics say is unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism.<\/p>\n

In particular, UK exports soared to Indonesia \u2013 a country struggling with an environmental crisis<\/a> from plastic pollution \u2013 amounting to more than 24,000 tonnes. The total plastic waste exports in the first half of the year came to 317,747 tonnes.<\/p>\n

Used packaging being sorted at a recycling centre in London. Across the country 21 such factories have closed in the past two years. Photograph: Peter Dazeley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Exporting hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic waste to countries without the capability to process it properly increases the chance of serious environmental pollution<\/a> as well as putting the lives of waste workers at risk.<\/p>\n

James Mcleary, the managing director of Biffa polymers, said the industry was facing challenges and units were closing across the country.<\/p>\n

Plastic recycling facilities that have closed in the past two years include Biffa\u2019s Sunderland factory, which had capacity to process 39,000 tonnes each year of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) plastic \u2013 used in packaging \u2013 and three Viridor facilities. Vanden Recycling is also closing its plastics processing site<\/a> in Whittlesey, Peterborough.<\/p>\n

Keeping the waste material collected from households within the UK to be cleaned, sorted, processed and turned into recycled products, is better environmentally, captures the carbon within the plastic, and creates jobs and growth, experts say.<\/p>\n

But policymakers have not made the key changes needed to stop incentivising plastic waste exports.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to wonder if there is a boy whose life has been wasted somewhere because of me throwing something in a bin<\/p>\n

Mcleary said the continued export of waste plastic should be an affront to our civilised society. He cited the deaths of 200 young people in Turkey<\/a> that were exposed earlier this year by ISIG Meclisi, which carried out the first analysis of workplace deaths in the country\u2019s recycling industry. The UK was the largest exporter of plastic waste to Turkey in 2023.<\/p>\n

The investigation, called Boy Wasted, revealed that two people are crushed, ripped, or burned to death in the sector every month, and that this has been the case non-stop for the past 10 years.<\/p>\n

Mcleary said there was a need for a level playing field for the UK plastic recycling industry. \u201cI don\u2019t like closing plants, it\u2019s jobs and it\u2019s people lives,\u201d he said. \u201cFundamentally I believe you need to take responsibility for our waste ourselves. It is just common sense as a human being. I don\u2019t want my rubbish to end up in Malaysia. I don\u2019t want to wonder if there is a boy whose life has been wasted somewhere because of me throwing something in a bin outside my house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lines as a civilised society we should not cross \u2013 it is not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

A waste worker at a landfill site near Istanbul. The UK is the biggest exporter of plastic waste to Turkey. Photograph: Sedat Suna\/EPA<\/p>\n

Mcleary said the loophole that made it cheaper for companies to export plastic rather than keep it in the UK needed to be closed. \u201cWe are asking for a level playing field. We don\u2019t want the market tilted towards us. This has been pointed out over a number of years by ourselves and others. Yet today we are in a perfect storm and factories are closing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He welcomed the UK\u2019s plastic packaging tax<\/a>, which is imposed on producers who fail to include at least 30% of recycled plastic in their products, as a way of driving demand to use our own stock of plastic waste in the UK. But he wants it to be more ambitious by raising the requirement for products to have a minimum recycled content to 50% by 2030 to encourage manufacturers incorporate more of it into their products and reduce the use of virgin plastic.<\/p>\n

Building a UK plastic recycling industry to keep the plastic waste thrown out by householders within the country had the potential to become a \u00a32bn industry, hiring 2,000 people directly and 3,000 indirectly and would also restore public confidence in recycling, Mcleary said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in the UK should care where their plastic goes,\u201d he added. \u201cIf they think they are recycling they should know it is being recycled, and know that it is being recycled in a responsible fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viridor has closed three plastic recycling factories in the past three years; in Avonmouth, Skelmersdale and this year its Rochester sorting plant.<\/p>\n

A UK recycling plant sorts plastic waste into bales, ready to be processed. Photograph: Teamjackson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

An industry source said it was important that policymakers started seeing waste as critical infrastructure. \u201cIf we were to stop exporting plastic waste, and we were to meet our increased recycling target of a 65% recycling rate for municipal waste by 2035, we would need to build 40 new factories across the UK \u2013 20 of them would be sorting facilities and 20 would be processing facilities turning the material back into products,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a key growth area and has a carbon benefit because it stops the plastic being incinerated and used in energy for waste. But the risk is now that we are exporting material and the investment and the jobs to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government said it was committed to cleaning up the nation and cracking down on plastic waste. \u201cFor too long plastic waste has littered our streets, polluted Britain\u2019s waterways, and threatened our wildlife,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cOur packaging reforms will collectively underpin \u00a310bn worth of investment in new sorting and processing facilities, while delivering the deposit return scheme will ensure more plastic is recycled and not chucked away as litter or left to rot in landfill.\u201d<\/p>\n

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