Investigation looms after UK plastic recycling industry is hit by corruption allegations

22 Oct 2018 --- The UK plastic recycling industry is likely to face an investigation after complaints surfaced that firms and organized crime rings are allegedly abusing the export system by illegal profiting and the pollution of rivers and oceans. According to The Environmental Agency’s (EA) records, six UK plastic waste exporters have had licenses suspended or revoked in the previous three months, while one firm had 57 plastic waste shipments stopped at UK ports in three years because of fears over waste contamination. First reported by the Guardian, the EA is believed to have set up a team of investigators to explore the alleged industry-wide scandal.

According to The Guardian, the EA is said to be investigating the following:

• Illegal shipments of plastic waste which are transported via the Netherlands to the Far East.
• Exporters illegally claiming for non-existent shipments of plastic waste.
• UK Plastic waste being dumped into waterways and oceans rather than being recycled.
• UK firms known to the authorities to ship contaminated waste have been allowed to continue exporting.

UK Government figures suggest that UK households and business got through 11 million tons of plastic waste last year while two-thirds is exported, predominately to Malaysia, Poland and Turkey. In January, China stopped accepting imported plastic waste meaning the UK had to look for alternative export destinations. The Guardian reports that “the world is about to close the door on UK packaging waste” altogether.

An undisclosed source with knowledge of the inquiry told The Guardian: “In the last few months, the customs figures on waste plastic are lower than the figures given to the Environmental Agency by the exporters – suggesting more people are shipping stuff they claim is waste plastic in order to get the Pern Price.”

“Perns are running at around £60-70 (US$78-91) a ton, so that encourages all sorts of people to pursue the export market, and the question is whether the enforcement is strong enough to detect whether this is actually plastic waste being shipped out.”

Fears are growing that the UK will be unable to achieve its ambition of recycling half of its plastic waste by 2020. Phil Conran, Director of 360 Environmental and Chair of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging tells The Guardian, “At the moment material is still being collected and still going somewhere … but all the sense is that we have reached a tipping point and we simply are struggling to find markets for material that is being collected.”

Addie van der Spapen of the Netherlands recycling firm Kunstst also explains to The Guardian: “[UK plastic waste] won’t all get recycled. Europe is getting overflowed with the material from England, they are flooding Europe with their plastic.”

Improving UK recycling at source
During the Packaging Innovations 2018 show in London, Simon Boas Hoffmeyer, Head of Sustainability at Carlsberg, told PackagingInsights: “In general, I believe that the UK has slightly lower recycling rates than many other European markets, so I think there is definitely work to do in the UK to improve it, both on consumer information side, but also in terms of the infrastructure that is in place.”

PackagingInsights spoke to Mike Jackson, a board member of the UK Recycling Association, about how the UK can improve the quality and quantity of its recycling at source: “I think the problem starts with the design of products. If we have products that take the actual practicality of recycling into consideration in terms of what the UK can actually achieve. But then what is government regulation doing for recycling – we’ve heard good ideas about deposit return schemes – but what’s actually going to happen? And at the consumer level – what are people being told? How is information getting to consumers? At the moment the information is too fractured so it is difficult for them to do the right thing even if they want to.”

In line with Jackson’s comments, UK plastics recycling company Veolia is calling for standardized packaging which makes products recyclable by design. The call comes as it was revealed that 93 percent of UK consumers think plastic bottles should contain recycled content and would be willing to pay an average of 2.5p more. Veolia is also recommending a simplification of recycling to “remove confusion” and an increase in the use of recycled content in the manufacturing of new products. Read more about it here.

The need for the UK plastic industry and other stakeholders to develop effective recycling systems which recycle waste at source has intensified under the scrutiny of this pending investigation, and China’s import ban from January. The export of waste does not appear to be a long-term solution, with increasing numbers of lesser developed nations beginning to reject foreign imports.

Just recently, Thailand announced that it is set to ban the importation of plastic waste from wealthy nations by 2021, citing concern over rising pollution and limited recycling capacity. The ban follows previous limitations set by the Thai government to limit the number of plastic waste imports arriving at its shores. Read about it here.

By Joshua Poole