The British Plastics Federation issued a statement in the wake of the Government’s Consultation publishing their paper ‘Implementing the Packaging Strategy” in which they proposed that 56.9% of plastic packaging be recycled by 2020.
In the statement the British Plastics Federation claims that the target, which would constitute a 32% increase over the course of under ten years, is unachievable and sets an impossible standard. They continued stating that even if the amount of funding needed was given to build adequate facilities to up the recycling infrastructure, the goal could still not be reached in time.
The statement continues to criticise the target, stating that by aiming for such a high target, it could actually jeopardize UK recycling by pushing the recycling industry into uneconomical and non eco-safe measures through the heavy consumption of water and energy needed to meet such a goal.
The Federation sited Germany as an example, commenting that Germany has been operating an active plastics recycling programme for almost 15 years but has only managed to increase recycling rates by 42%. Achieving 32% in under ten years, the Federation states, is not possible.
The BPF was quick to point out that they support any responsible measures that the Government would like to enact to prevent waste from ending up in landfills, but that the infrastructure to impact such change so rapidly is not in existence yet.
The BPF goes on to say that a substantial new investment is required first in order for mixed plastics and other forms of plastics to have the proper facilities to be sorted before any targets can be put into place. They continued to propose that the Government aim for 50 percent of plastics recycled by 2020, which although is a lot, they admit is achievable.
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