Should I really be trying to recycle plastic waste?

bat999

Rdwill said:

Further, these plants are built for a certain throughput say of 400kts, the Council want 350kts, so the remaining 50kts is sold to commercial customers to offset the costs. You put another 30kts of plastic in the Council proportion, and now there's only 20kts to sell to offset the cost to Council model.

Aha, the penny has dropped.

My council has a contract with Suez W-to-E that allows up to say 400kts.

Like a data allowance with mobile phone contract.

But if we only sent say 350kts we could sell off the unused 50kts of our allowance.
And maybe sell it at a lucrative spot price.

Albermarle

Newbie_John said:

There's a lot of gimmickness about plastic recycling.

Shoes made of recycled plastic.. lovely but can you recycle them? No, they go to landfill. So what's the point really?

Sending plastic abroad to be dumped or burned in a very ploouting way.

Incineration is as bad as coal power plant, but "reuses" the plastic.

Honestly, the only way forward is to either buy less plastic or just buy less - as everything has plastic somewhere (packaging, bottle, buttons, threads, wrapping, envelopes..).

You are right there is a lot of green washing generally, and not just about recycling. 

I also agree that one way forward with plastics is to generally use less, and buy less. However two points worth making.
This mainly applies to 'one use' plastics. Many plastics are used in long lasting applications, especially in the construction industry, and in many cases their carbon footprint/use of resources is significantly less than alternative/natural materials.

Also some plastic recycling areas are very successful and also carried out in the UK. For example PVC windows, doors and conservatories are recycled and then the end product is used in the manufacture of similar products. Or plastic milk bottles are recycled into rigid plastic grids and matrixes, used to stabilise unstable ground, river banks, flood defences etc.

Rdwill

@bat999

I think you're looking for a conspiracy where there isn't one. 

What you're proposing is that the Council / SUEZ, forego selling tthe separately collected plastic waste, the HDPE and PET are very valuable, check on Letsrecycle.com, to push out commercial customers paying top whack to tip. Thats a triple hit on the running costs of the county's waste operation. 

This would have all been worked out when calculating the gatefee for the Council.

bat999

Rdwill said:

@bat999

I think you're looking for a conspiracy where there isn't one. 

Point taken.
''''''''''

Rdwill

@bat999

Just to illustrate the point, say

1.  Councils Income from selling plastics is £100 per tonne
2. Councils tipping cost into incinerator is £110 per tonne

So that's a swing of £210 per tonne loss to Council, and

3. Then the operator (SUEZ) can not sell that volume which is taken up by the newly introduced plastic commercially for £120 per tonne, because their contracted to sell to Council for £110 per tonne. So loss £10.

Depending on how the cost model works that's a total loss of c£220 per tonne to someone (council or SUEZ) for burning plastic instead of recycling it.

bat999

Rdwill said:

@bat999

Just to illustrate the point...

Yes, I can follow your arithmetic.

And I understand about the changed recipe and emissions.

But consider this...

Output from separation centre might be 7 skips.

1. Aluminium cans.

2. Steel cans.

3. Brown glass bottles/jars.

4. Clear glass bottles/jars.

5. Green glass bottles/jars.

6. PET containers eg Cola bottles.

7. HDPE containers eg Milk jugs.

A broker will probably find buyers for first 5 skips.

They have well established streams in UK or even to eg steelmills in Germany or glassworks in France.

But skip number 6.

They would ideally need to find a plant that could output food-grade rPET granulate at a competitive price.

And if such a place did exist I'm not sure they would pay anybody £100 per tonne for their feedstock.

I don't know much about this subject so maybe such rPET and rHDPE plants can actually make a living from this business. 

If broker can't find a buyer they might resort to burning it in Poland or landfill in Turkey.

Rdwill

It's not the PET or HDPE that have income attached to them that end up somewhere it shouldn't.

It's the 'cheaper' grades, that an unscrupulous operator will charge you £50 per tonne to get rid of that end up going down these routes. So income for them. And then they just need to get rid of the product for less than £50, to make a turn.

But rest assured, if your Council contracts with reputable companies like SUEZ, BIFFA, Veolia etc, then these business have enough due diligence and checks in place for you to be comforted that your waste is being treated correctly from end to end.

Albermarle

I don't know much about this subject so maybe such rPET and rHDPE plants can actually make a living from this business.  

 PET is very easy to recycle but due to food hygiene regulations only some is suitable for recycling back into food packaging and drinks bottles. The rest is used in other applications.

HDPE is also easy to recycle and has numerous end applications. One being large moulded grids and pipes used for ground/river bank stabilisation, flood defences etc.

Other plastic can also be recycled but the economics does not always work out.
One big factor is that the price of the virgin ( new ) polymer is quite volatile. The higher it goes the more using recycled plastic becomes attractive.

bat999

For anybody interested... The Engineer Guy

The masterful design of the two-liter plastic soda bottle

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kU_gH36GG58