Plastic not so fantastic - failures in recycling a primary contaminant

                                                                                                      Shutterstock

After decades of seeking mainstream public attention, the dangers of plastic contamination in the environment has finally become accepted across international borders. Alas, this recognition has only occured now that the problem has reached a critical scale and impact across the world's oceans and reached as far away as Antarctica and the Northern polar region. 

How much plastic is leaking into the ocean ? Estimates are still being calculated however the quantity ranges from 4.8 to 12.7 mega tonnes per year. This is a staggering amount of which 80% of plastics in the ocean originate from land-based sources. 

Plastic is not a single type of manufactured artificial substance but comes in multiple forms. Control, reduction of use and recycling has become a critical issue in the world's environment and continuing failures have led widespread plastic contamination across the world. Ocean litter is commonly found to comprise cigarette butts, food wrappers, bottle tops, plastic bags and straws hence the current moves to ban many of these plastic items.

What are the categories of plastic that are eligible for recycling ? 

1. at the top of the list is is polythylene terephthalate (commonly referred to as PET) comprises roughly more than half of the the recyclable plastics. It is denoted on packaging with the no "1"
2. the second most common form is high-density polyethylene (or HDPE) that is denoted by the no "2" on packaging. HDPE comprises a bit over a third of the recycling market and typically is used for packaging (milk and shampoo bottles) and pipes.
3. next is low density polyethylene which has a "4"on its packaging and is used in clear plastic film. This plastic accounts for around 4% of the recycling market 
4. also with around 4% of the market is polyproplene which is denoted by the number "5". This plastic is used in yoghurt and food spread containers.

The final group of plastic types have little value in manufacturing and thus no recycling. These are polyvinyl chloride (no "3"), polystyrene (no "6"), other mixed plastics (no "7").

The top exporters of plastic waste in 2019 were the European Union, Japan and the United States with the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Mexico and Australia being next. The importers of plastic waste comprise predominantly Malaysia, Hong Kong (interestingly), Turkey, the US, Vietnam, Indonesia, Korea, India, Thailand and now much less significantly, China.

The UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures has tracked the movement of plastic waste as shown in the diagram below -

Environmentally responsible trade in waste plastics in the Asia Pacific Region - UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures

The leakage of waste plastic has a variety of reasons - the difficulty in disposal of residual, unrecyclable plastic, no environmental control in processing plastics, poor management of stockpiling and transport of waste plastic, poor quality of bales being exported, labelling of shipments which is false or incorrect, trading at low or negative prices. Waste leakage most often occurs at the destination country rather than the country of origin or during transit according to UTS.

So what are the solutions ?

In a nutshell, there are improvements that can be implemented such as -

• for exporting countries, improving their collection and sorting of plastics before despatching offshore
• improving the accountability for shipments for both exporters and importers
• checking destination processing and monitoring at the importing countries
• redesign and re-engineering of packaging design and using fewer low value or composite plastics.

The full report can be accessed here: Environmentally responsible trade waste plastics asia pacific