The UK produces around 1.4m tonnes of mixed plastic packaging waste every year - including yoghurt pots, salad bags and ready meal trays and this figure is growing by 2-5% every year.
The Waste Resources Action Programme has just published research into the best ways of dealing with it, asking if it made financial sense to recycle this waste and if recycling it would be better for the environment than other options - such as burning it or sending it to landfill. The research showed that, in addition to the environmental benefits, recycling can be cheaper than both these options.
It found that overall, landfill is the least favourable option for disposing of plastics waste. However, in terms of global warming potential the research found that incineration of plastic packaging, was the worst option. This is because more CO2 is emitted by burning plastics than by burning gas or coal to generate the same amount of energy. It also found that the best environmental option is to invest in technology to produce high quality recycled plastics, but there will still be a need for solid recovered fuel (SRF) in some cases. Consequently, it makes sense to build integrated plants capable of both options as this improves the economic benefit and maximises the environmental impact
To read the press release and for the link to the full report see here.
Post a new comment »