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

 https://www.poeppelmann.com/en/teku/advantages/more-resource-saving/ 

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

Dont put it in the recovery position !

It was a simple innocent question that I put to Resource Recovery Solutions at a meeting of the Sinfin waste incineration plants Community Liaison Group (CLG) meeting back in early 2016.

 

We were part way though a presentation by a representative of RRS / SHANKS in relation to what they teach school children they visit at schools across Derby and Derbyshire or tours the construction site with and I was feeling somewhat uneasy that the councils were paying a company that was being employed to burn vast volumes of waste to then also educate school children what we should do with waste.

So at that point I thought hey ho lets just pop a question across to the the RRS / SHANKS  just to satisfy myself that they were in fact educating school children correctly and that I was being unfair to judge them. It was at this point that a representative of RRS / SHANKS (named in the meetings official minutes) told the meeting that they told children it was a recovery plant.

WOW THERE ! WOW THERE ! now hold on just a minute ! did they say it was a RECOVERY PLANT ? really ! a RECOVERY PLANT ?

 

Now burning waste is a funny old game because doing so can be considered to be one of two things when it comes to considering the process in the waste hierarchy it is considered a disposal process unless it can prove otherwise in which case it is a recovery process.

 The waste hierarchy just for clarity is a set of processes when dealing with the whole issue of waste that must be considered as it takes in best practices to deal with waste in the most sustainable way.

It starts with REDUCTION / PREVENTION where the aim is to reduce what waste we produce so managing materials in the best way - by not using them to start with ! Then we have RE-USE which is where whenever possible we take items that are now scrap and attempt to use them again in an innovative way to keep them out of landfill and incineration. Then comes RECYCLE which is when materials at the end of their life if not reused are reprocessed into new items by making use of the products raw material make up. As we head down the hierarchy we get closer to less sustainable methods of waste management such as incineration and landfill - neither of which are good methods of waste disposal. This brings us to RECOVERY which is when those handling waste start to use wastes for energy generation such as in incineration plants which meet an efficiency target called R1. These are plants which can show that their efficiency of energy generation meets a strict target and often requires such plants to export large volumes of heat or steam to customers to meet that efficiency rating. Finally we come to DISPOSAL which includes inefficient energy generation in incineration plants and also landfill.
In a twist to things a plant that meets R1 efficiency targets is STILL a disposal plant until it is granted recovery status.

Now rather conveniently for the UK government they use a waste hierarchy image as shown below which I consider to be incorrect as it blurs the lines between recovery and disposal in the waste hierarchy by using questionable wording.

The image shown below is the image in question and is used by DEFRA in their document

Energy from Waste a Guide to the Debate dated Feb 2014
 

 

Now reviewing the image it would be very easy to be misled into thinking that any incineration plant - including gasification is recovery in the waste hierarchy if it generates energy. The image appears to imply this is the case and as this image is commonly reproduced a gross misunderstanding takes place!

It is only when you take the chance to read other areas of the document that the issue of R1 and its application are considered and at that point you realise the difference between recovery and disposal. Obviously there are some who favour this blurring as it allows them to paint a picture of a project that makes it conveniently sound better than it is.

To aid you readers below is produced a series of statements from DEFRA from the document in relation to R1 and what is known as D10 disposal.

 

Recovery or disposal – the meaning of R1

47. As described above the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) sets out the waste hierarchy and enshrines it in law. It requires that a waste management route defined as recovery should be used ahead of an alternative that is classified as disposal. Exceptions can be made (see below) but this general principle makes it important to know whether a process is considered recovery or disposal. 

48. Historically the Waste Framework Directives have included annexes which set out lists of what are considered to be recovery or disposal operations. Each is given a number and a letter: R for recovery, D for disposal. In the current directive the classifications of particular relevance to energy from waste are: • R1 – Use principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy • D10 – Incineration on land 

49. What this means is that where waste is burnt as a fuel to generate energy it can potentially be considered a recovery operation (R1) but where the purpose of incineration is to get rid of waste, it is considered D10 and hence disposal.  All municipal waste incinerators were and are deemed as disposal activities (D10) unless and until they are shown to meet the requirements of R1. This is why the term R1 often crops up in the debate about how good an energy from waste plant might be and how it compares to other options. 

50. For municipal solid waste, which includes all the waste collected from households, the EU has gone further by defining what it considers to be sufficient for recovery status under R1. The WFD includes a formula relating to the efficiency of the combustion plant. A municipal waste combustion plant can only be considered to be a recovery operation under R1 if it generates energy and the plant meets the efficiency thresholds calculated using the R1 formula

SO THAT IS THE OFFICIAL BLURB FROM DEFRA ON RECOVERY OR DISPOSAL PLANTS AS GOVERNED BY EU DIRECTIVES - WHICH STILL GOVERN THE UK SINCE BREXIT.

So returning to what the RRS / SHANKS representative said they teach students the plant is. they stated they teach students that the plant is a RECOVERY plant - which raises the issue of R1 as noted above.
When we consider R1 and the claims of the RRS / SHANKS representative we know what they are teaching children is false because at the 2nd planning inquiry the developer had to admit that their plant fails the R1 test in its standard mode.
If you tell children something that is false then in general it is usually considered a lie.
It is a lie in this case because staff employed in waste disposal and waste management will know the requirements of the waste hierarchy

 IT IS THEIR JOB.


©SIMON BACON 2016