Tuesday 15 October 2019

The plant pot that went to Full Council !

Single use plastic in the many forms it now comes in is a hot topic across the globe as it blocks rivers, streams and beaches. News is published it seems daily of one risk or other to wildlife and the human race and this focus is now bringing change - or at least it is when those trying to change are supported by those locally in power who can support and aid change.

When it comes to single use plastics if they cannot be designed out then they must at the very least be recyclable AND collected for recycling. There is little point in making a product recyclable if the infrastructure is not there to handle the product at end of life so that it can once again be returned as a resource to the manufacturers to complete the recycling circle.

A prime example of a single use plastic item which currently struggles to be recycled are plastic plant pots which can be found in almost all gardens across the UK as the public carry out the yearly ritual of planting out summer flowers. Many of these pots are made from polypropylene often called PP for short. Recycling should not be an issue as this plastic is already widely recycled in the UK when gathered in the recycling stream of household materials but there is a problem and that problem is that most of the plant pots are made from black polypropylene and as many of us know black plastic can rarely be sorted at UK materials recycling facilities because the sorting machines cannot see black plastics.


As single use plastics became more of a media story and as TV programs such as Gardeners World began to focus on the issue change began to take place in horticulture as pot manufacturers began producing alternative pots in specific shades which are now beginning to catch on. Taupe and blue are just two shades of recyclable plant pots now being sold into the horticultural industry.

It was with this in mind and with being employed in horticulture where I have spoken to many concerned customers that I decided I needed to take this up directly with my local council and so back in February 2019 a blue recyclable plant pot made by the manufacturer Poppelmann under their TEKU brand made it's way to the council chamber in Derby UK where I asked on it's behalf if the council would now finally accept such plant pots for recycling in the cities co-mingled waste recycling scheme.



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So that was a NO at that point but after the meeting I continued to push the issue of accepting recyclable plant pots by continuing to engage with the council cabinet member and staff from the councils recycling dept in Derby. They were provided with information directly from the manufacturers website
I thought having provided the manufacturers specific information on the product it would answer all the councils questions along with those of their current recycling processor Biffa Waste Services who would be the ones actually sorting and selling on the material.

One of the main sticking points claimed by the council was that Biffa their current contractor was concerned about the plant pots being contaminated with soil which they felt was a bacteria risk. Now this could be considered a risk if all the OTHER plastics collected by the council were clean and sterile but as we all know in the real world they are far from clean and likely carry just as many if not more bacteria of concern so to me this is just a fob off because the plastic in question does not have a high value. Lets face it plastics will be cleaned prior to being melted down so the councils contractor faces few risks. 
As someone who has worked with such scary soil daily in my work in horticulture it sounds like I am lucky to be alive if we trust the council and their contractor Biffa's concerns!

To take this blog post full circle I felt it only fair to once again ask the council about the potential for plant pot recycling having given them a number of months to digest my request.

Council cabinet member for waste Councillor Jonathan Smale stated the following.

We are continuing to work with our suppliers to extend the offer to residents around recycling, we will continue this process with our future contacts as well.  At present under the current contract we cannot accept these materials, however, this is all being looked at with our new contract.

With regards to the consultant we are working with for the re-tendering of the dry recyclable and garden waste contracts, this consultant is Eunomia. We are also hoping DEFRA gives us some clear direction on the future waste strategy."


We can only hope that the councils advisers and DEFRA push the likes of Derby City Council in the direction of plant pot recycling instead of the potty idea that plant pot recycling is something to fear. 


©SIMON BACON 2019















Monday 18 February 2019

Something is rotten in the Derbyshire Dales.

Across the UK many councils are now looking to charge for garden waste be it for an all year or part year service an example of which until recently is Derby UK where a part year service was £40 for garden waste to be collected April to November.
The result of the Derby charge for service was a devastated recycling rate and so thankfully Derby City Council have seen sense and a free service restarts in April 2019.
  No sooner do we get this good news from Derby in relation to the garden waste service returning to a free service do we get the bad news from Derbyshire Dales District Council that they are proposing to INTRODUCE  a charged for service claiming that they could not continue their free service to residents once they negotiate their new waste recycling contract.
Now there is a key difference between the two councils because while Derby City Council is a disposal authority meaning it has to fund all of its waste and recycling Derbyshire Dales is just a district council and while it has to fund its recycling service it does not have to fund its residual waste disposal which is a key difference between the two councils.
The proposal to introduce a charged for service in the Derbyshire Dales area was enthusiastically welcomed by many councillors at a council meeting in late 2018 on 29th November. There was talk of the councils recycling rate being at 57% and recent government publications suggest it could even be as high as 60% which is an impressive recycling rate but once a charged for service for garden waste is put in place where will that rate go other than down in a spiral ?
The councils recycling rate uses tonnage of recycling as the method for generating the councils recycling rate and as garden waste is a heavy material removal of that waste from the recycling stream clearly reduces the overall tonnage of recyclate and that has to then impact the councils recycling rate of which they are so proud.
Then we have to consider the slight of hand that's going to take place here at Derbyshire Dales District Council when it comes to waste costs linked to recycling and disposal.
Derbyshire Dales District Council is simply a district council and has to pay the cost of collecting waste and recycling waste materials but what it does NOT have to do is pay for the disposal of residual waste because that is the responsibility of Derbyshire County Council which is the disposal authority.
All Derbyshire Dales District Council has to do is collect and deliver residual waste to where Derbyshire County Council directs them towards which could either be directly to the controversial Sinfin waste incineration plant in Derby or to a transfer site in the county for onward shipment to Sinfin to be burnt.
Now its not rocket science to realise that if your a district council looking to reduce costs if you can force waste you were previously paying to compost into the residual waste stream that you DON'T pay to dispose of and even better get people to agree to pay a charge for the waste that still does get composted then by some wonder of wonders you have saved your council money but what you are not doing is saving your residents money because by diverting compostable waste into the residual waste stream which is very commonly vastly more expensive per tonne than if composted you have transferred a cost to the disposal authority which in this case is Derbyshire County Council which in turn will have to recoup that increased cost from residents of the County via the likes of an increase in council tax.
There may however be a happy ending to this story!
In recent days the UK government have announced proposals that they will require councils to offer a free garden waste service so the plans of Derbyshire Dales District Council may still be consigned to the compost heap!

 ©SIMON BACON 2019

Saturday 12 January 2019

No wonder we are drowning in plastic!

As 2019 dawns after all the media coverage of the plastic issue in 2018 then we all must look at the waste we produce - only then will we understand what needs to change.
As luck would have it back in January 2018 seeing all the plastic film I appeared to generate that couldn't be recycled I decided to collect all of this plastic over the period of the year - limiting it mainly to outer wrappers on many products which either showed no recycling information or claimed the material could not currently be recycled.
As 2019 then dawned how much waste material had I gathered from myself and my family of cats?
 
 
ALMOST A BATH TUB FULL !
A blend mainly of chocolate bar outers, biscuit packs, oven chip packaging and cat food outers along with some clear vegetable packaging I was struck by a few things. Firstly I eat to much chocolate - but then really I always knew that but more importantly how little of this material is recyclable - or even marked with any recycling information.
Sorting through the waste was quite an insight - if it was a chocolate bar outer it almost always carried no recycling information.
 
 
This led to me sorting out a whole bin bag full of wrappers displaying no recycling info
 
 
How could it be that in 2018 such big name producers of chocolate products as Nestle, Cadbury and Mars could get away with this?
 
There was one or two glimmers of hope as it became clear some of the waste - some biscuit wrappers and chocolate bar wrappers marketed by the likes of Mcvities could potentially be recycled if they were sent to a business called Terracycle - which specialises in recycling hard to recycle products which cannot be recycled at the kerbside - but even with Terracycle it is not an ideal situation to have to create waste to recycle waste - by shipping waste back to Terracycle.
 
This then also left me with a collection of rather stretchy plastic film packaging that looked very much like LDPE plastic - but even though it LOOKED like it once again the packaging either said nothing about recyclability or stated it wasn't currently recycled.
Much of this waste was found to be Sainsburys home brand products - all stretchy plastics but all claiming not currently recycled.
 
 
It was time to investigate - and I didn't have to look far to be able to confirm that yes that stretchy plastic that kind of looked like LDPE plastic WAS LDPE plastic - and so could actually be recycled at supermarket carrier bag recycling points. But why market products in your stores which CAN be recycled and then not show this on the packaging?
Other big brand similar products also displaying either questionable recycling information or no information marketed by McCains (oven chips), Aunt Bessies (oven chips) and Butchers Pet Care (outer cling wrap on multi pack cat food) have all now been confirmed by the manufacturers as also being LDPE so yet more waste I thought was not recyclable will be going to a supermarket recycling point soon - lets empty the bath!
But just like a bath tub there is an issue with recycling plastic film that's left me feeling a bit drained!
A number of waste management companies now claim that there is no market for plastic film - even if collected for recycling.
How can we be in a position where it is considered better to make plastic film from new raw materials than to recycle waste plastic back into new replacement products?
Then we wonder why so much waste goes to landfill and incineration!
 
  ©SIMON BACON 2019