British consumers generate more plastic waste Per capita is higher than the residents of any other country except the United States-and less than 10% of them are recycled.
Not only is our recycling system overwhelmed, but it also bombards other countries with our waste, causing serious harm to their citizens and the environment, especially in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
footprint
Public concerns about the plastic pollution crisis have risen sharply. A recent poll showed that 85% of Britons hope that the government will ask retailers to reduce the amount of plastic packaging.
However, despite this, a new analysis by Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found that the plastic footprint of the top 10 UK supermarkets actually increased by 1.2% between 2017 and 2019, from 886,000 tons to nearly 897,000 tons.
Why are we still submerged in plastic?
- Oil prices fall
During the COVID-19 pandemic, oil prices fell sharply. This means that companies that make plastics will not use as much recyclable materials as possible because the price of virgin plastics is lower and there is little incentive to use recycled materials.
- We use too much
It’s nice that we recycle more, but we don’t have the capacity to handle it. Reducing consumption may seem obvious at first, but it is difficult to act when it is deeply ingrained in our daily lives.
Consumers are blamed, but ultimately it depends on changes in big companies. Take the supermarket as an example. Sometimes, plastic can extend the shelf life, but in most cases, this is unnecessary.
In 2019, British supermarkets produced 896,853 tons of plastic packaging. This is a slight decrease from 2018 (less than 2%), but it is a far cry from the real progress our planet needs, and of course it is nothing to fuss about.
One change that may help is the rise of online grocery stores, which is a huge opportunity to reduce plastic products.
Recently, Tesco partnered with Loop, which uses fully reusable packaging that can be recycled, cleaned and reused. If supermarkets replicate this on a large scale, they can discard thousands of tons of plastic.
- Not enough closed loop recycling
Recyclers are more likely to sell advanced clean plastics that can be sorted and processed quickly, so these plastics, such as water bottles, are given priority.
Currently, there is not enough closed loop recycling (for example, a bottle becomes a new bottle, which means it can be recycled again and again). Most plastics recycled in our households are not clean enough and will eventually enter the open loop recycling process.
The problem with open loops is that as water bottles turn into food packaging or polyester with a low recycling rate, the final material cannot be recycled
Weigh the solution
- Replace sand with waste plastic
sand? Random, you might think. In fact, the use of raw materials goes far beyond the beach. In the field of construction alone, 4-50 billion tons of materials are mainly used in concrete every year in the world, of which 25% is sand. It is also used in smartphones and TV screens, think about how many there are in the world. Billions.
The problem is that we have run out-most desert or beach sand is not suitable, so it is usually dredged from rivers. Because this causes environmental damage, countries such as India, Cambodia and Vietnam have introduced bans in recent years.
A recent study by Dr. John Orr, a lecturer in concrete structures at the University of Cambridge, found that plastic waste can be sorted, cleaned, shredded and crushed into a sand substitute for concrete.
Although this is an exciting prospect, in the long run, we should completely stay away from concrete and cement in order to find more sustainable alternative building materials.
- Chemical recycling
Chemical recycling is not affected by pollution, so it may be an important step in solving the waste crisis. It works by using heat or catalysts to break down plastic into its original form so that it can eventually be remanufactured and used in new plastic products.
However, we need to find a way to make it economically sustainable because it is currently a fairly expensive process and we lack infrastructure. It also uses energy and produces smoke when plastic melts, causing global warming, so we need to take measures to control this situation.
- gasification
Currently, many plastics are burned by incineration. However, this process emits fly ash and many other pollutants.
On the other hand, greenhouse gas emissions from gasification are 25-30% lower than incineration.
It works by using only a small amount of oxygen, combined with steam and cooking under high pressure. This initiates a series of reactions, producing a gaseous mixture mainly composed of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
- Deposit return plan
Despite the good intentions, small measures such as banning the use of plastic straws and cotton swabs to curb the plastic wave have so far had little effect.
However, more significant reforms such as the introduction of the “deposit refund plan” for plastic bottles may make a difference. Every year in the UK, consumers are estimated to use 14 billion plastic beverage bottles, 9 billion beverage cans and 5 billion glass bottles.
Due to the postponement of COVID-19, the deposit return plan will be implemented in 2024. British retailers will collect deposits from customers on the basis of the prices of glass bottles, plastic bottles and cans. The customer can retrieve the container after returning it to the designated return point.
- Producer’s extended responsibility for packaging
Expanded Producer Responsibility (EPR) will take effect in 2023. Manufacturers will pay the full cost of managing and recycling packaging waste, and if the packaging is more difficult to reuse or recycle, higher fees will be imposed.
Companies that produce and/or sell packaging will assume responsibilities beyond their packaging design and use, which include promoting their collection and reuse, recycling or composting in practice.
- Plastic tax
It is recommended to levy a tax on plastic packaging with a recycled content of less than 30% from April 2022. It is estimated that by 2030, the tax will increase by 1.8 billion pounds, and it is hoped that the tax will be used to produce reprocessing capacity in the UK and to invest in collection and sorting.
- Prohibit the use of single-use plastics
If the output of single-use plastics produced in the UK is reduced by half, we can end waste exports and reduce the sending of plastics to incineration and landfills.
If it is not eliminated, it will be impossible to realize the circular economy of plastics. As the demand for plastic packaging doubles in the next two decades, it is impossible to keep this growing plastic flow outside the economy and the environment.
- Use bioplastics
Bioplastics are in the form of plastics, either bio-based and related to the source of the material (e.g. coffee cups made from coffee shells) or compostable and related to the way the material is processed after use (e.g. compostable Tea bags or food boxes used to collect food waste in the city).
The problem with many bioplastics is that they cannot be recycled. Since their melting point is lower than that of raw plastics, if mixed with petroleum-based plastics, they can cause severe damage. They will not degrade in landfills because of the complete lack of oxygen.
In addition, the environmental impact of the materials used to make bioplastics on the use of land and water resources should also be considered.
- Alternative materials
Long-term alternatives to plastics are being studied, and a range of packaging options are being tested globally. Examples include Ooho and Apeel.
Ooho is an edible and biodegradable beverage and condiment packaging made from brown seaweed (a renewable natural resource). The condiment bags have been tried out on Just Eat’s take-out platform. During the first 10 restaurant trials, the use of 46,000 condiment bags made of disposable plastic was avoided. The water capsule was also tested in the 2019 London Marathon, eliminating the need to use more than 30,000 disposable plastic cups and bottles.
Apeel is a plant-derived fruit and vegetable coating that slows water loss and oxidation. It can extend the shelf life without plastic packaging, such as shrink packaging of fruits and vegetables. It is estimated that a cucumber supplier can use Apeel to reduce shrink packaging by more than 30,000 kg each year. Apeel for avocados has been launched in all 1,100 stores of the US retailer Kroger, and recently launched in the ASDA store in the UK.
However, alternatives may also have unintended consequences—different materials may have a larger environmental footprint (eg, glass is heavier than plastic) due to the way they are manufactured or produce higher carbon emissions during transportation.
Given its versatility, plastics are expected to continue to be used in various applications, so the best approach is to design an effective plastic system in which it will never become waste or pollution.
- Redesign plastic
Without fundamental redesign and innovation, approximately 30% of plastic packaging will never be reused or recycled. Therefore, although recycling is part of the solution, we will not get rid of the plastic pollution crisis through recycling.
Things can be better designed and last longer; food chains and toy manufacturers do not have to produce inferior products; manufacturers can use fewer original raw materials. Innovation to ensure that the plastics we really need are reusable, recyclable or compostable.
- Personal contribution
Although in the end we need the cooperation of companies and governments to see long-term changes, we can contribute individually and help reduce the demand for plastics in a variety of ways:
- Buy loose vegetables as much as possible, and avoid plastic film if you can
- Buy fish and meat from the counter to avoid extra packaging
- Reuse coffee cups and water bottles
- Say no to microbeads
- Switch from shower gel to soap
- Purchase refills of washing powder, washing liquid, soap, etc.
- Put two trash cans in your bathroom-one for recycling and one for landfill
- Keep yourself away from wet wipes
- Flush the plastic to avoid contamination
- Keep the cap on the bottle when recycling
Passionate
If you feel passionate, you should also write to the company you disagree with its packaging-letters, emails, tweets. It is very effective.
For example, a member of the public complained to Unilever about the plastic in PG tipping tea bags.
They presented a petition for 200,000 signatures, so the CEO stated that he would use tea bags to design plastic. One person, one petition, the number of plastic tea bags in the environment has been reduced by 10 billion.
In the long run, we need more in-depth government support to stimulate and improve domestic recycling and reprocessing capabilities, and drive out low-quality plastics and packaging forms from the market.
To a large extent, this will be achieved through effective, long-term plastic taxes to support domestic investment and expand producer responsibility policies to eliminate the sale of packaging that is difficult to recycle or of poor quality.
This author
Sophie Johnson is a graduate of Zoology, full of enthusiasm Protect bloggers from England.
