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Plastic recycling - do you do it? Does the company you work for do it?

23:11 / 30.01.06

Nina and I are thinking of setting up a pressure group; initially to encourage the recycling of plastic products but with an ultimate goal to recycle all possible plastics in the UK.

So far our aims are:
1) for all recyclable plastics to be recycled in the UK
a) a plant that can deal with this

2) for councils to provide recycling facilities for all plastics, in walking distance of each home

3) plastic bag taxes

But we also want to include the corporate industry in our aims and for that we need your help.

What we want to know is this: Do you work for a big company? Do they recycle and if so what? Are your plastics recycled? Do you know if your company has a recycling policy? if you work for the BBC, or another media organisation, do they recycle? Does the government?

Economically, what are the viabilities of providing targeted tax breaks for businesses that recycle and could it be viable to provide a free recycling service for businesses?

Any answers to this greatly appreciated.

Also, can you help us think of a name? Obviously it has to do with 'plastic', and maybe 'action' but any suggestions would be welcomed.

We have come up with some excellent and easy campaign plans which you can all easily get involved in if you want, but firstly we need your help with this.

Tryphena Absent

23:39 / 30.01.06

If you work in a government office that doesn't recycle I will barbecrush you.

08:11 / 31.01.06

Fantastic idea. If you need a person in Oxford to do things I offer myself to you. The lack of decent plastic recycling in UK is one of my bug bears. Where I work we crush and recycle all plastic bottles (milk, squash etc.) but we're a small group and it basically involves a volunteer or staff member taking them to local recycling facility. We also collect small plastic bottles, wash them and fill them with squash for young homeless guests. 'tis only a drop in a shrink wrapped, laminated ocean though.

08:50 / 31.01.06

Mmm, good idea.

Where I work, we only have a paper recycling facility, and we only got that about a year ago. And of course loads of people don't even use it. There is no 'official' policy for using it, but we're a fairly small organisation and we have to pay (I think) by weight for collection, so there's not much thought going into increasing any kind of recycling.

Sadly, we are in the voluntary sector and not government, but I do know many poor civil servants and will press them for details of their plasticy activities.

Sorry, I'm probably not much use for your specific questions but you have inspired me to demand answers from the council as to why they can't manage a plastic collection when they do collect pretty much everything else...

10:08 / 31.01.06

Our council recycles plastic bottles only at home, and at work, though we are on the edge of a plastic-bottle recylcing council (Camden) and are a public HE institution, we don't have an in-house scheme - I take bottles to the bin round the corner but I don't know how many other people do - not many I imagine.

I think this is a great idea and will support in any way I can. I also think the call for more recycling plants is absolutely key - what's the point in collecting plastic waste if it is shipped to China for processing (as I have heard does occur - can't recall source, will try to find).

10:19 / 31.01.06

We recycle empty milk containers which are the main plastic waste at work, but annoyingly not the disposable plastic cups. I encourage the use of eco-friendly sustainable reusable china mugs, but you know how it is, disposable=convenient.
I can put you in contact with some people in Local gov't here in Brightonia, and can we do a piece on your scheme in the pilot Zeitgeist magazine? We're highlighting national initiatives to encourage green action and yours is ideal. PM me please lovely NinoLula.
I strongly* support the introduction of point-of-sale plastic recycling, a bag-bank at the supermarket and a bin for all the pointless packaging they wrap stuff in. Charging the large companies for their wrapping is the way forward IMHO, let's see the return of the brown paper bag. I'd like to see shops training their staff not to offer plastic bags with everything- I'm going to have to get a T-Shirt made that says NO I DON'T WANT A FUCKING BAG. Why?

That's why.

*read as 'violently and to an irrational extent'

10:40 / 31.01.06

Oh yes oh yes, here another violent response to the plastic bags in shops issue. Once, when buying some tiny item like a toothbrush, I was told that I *had* to have a (plastic) bag because you know otherwise the security guards would end up chasing me down the street.

What? WHAT??

Do you know, even the local healthyhealthorganic shop doesn't have paper bags for its loose produce.

Now I'm all agitated and angry. Rah.

10:45 / 31.01.06

Nina, I posted an article to you a while back about the success they've had with this in Germany - do you still have it? Could make an inspirational link. Obviously, happy to support this in any way I can.

Tryphena Absent

10:48 / 31.01.06

Our scheme appears to be coming to fruition. Today in response to an email I sent I was told "We only have address labels in white or coloured ones on A4 sheets. I have not heard of any “green” labels in odd shapes and colours. You could always try printing and cutting A4 single label sheets". So does anyone know of a place where we can get eco labels made up to specification?

10:54 / 31.01.06

First suggestion, I suppose I could do this - contact all big enviromental groups, and the Home Office, to to find out what initiatives like this are currently in existence.

Tryphena Absent

10:56 / 31.01.06

If you could that would be marvellous. Lula's all there with the site and I am trying to find stupid labels for a scheme that... I'm not going to tell you about. I would rather have them professionally printed but I don't know if that's going to be possible.

Dark side of the Moonfrog1

10:57 / 31.01.06

Lullabelle, PM me, I’m definitely interested.

I work for a publishing company that specialises in children’s magazines and I’ve recently become aware of how much plastic waste is created by cover gifts on our magazines. (Ironically, I discovered this after moaning to the MD about paper recycling, only to be told that my bigger worry should be the amount of nasty non-bio-degradable plastic we put on magazines, which are played with by a child for five minutes then chucked in a bin.)

Quick example:

The All-New Adventures of the Generic Licensed Character! Magazine by Mimsy & Pumpernickel publishers has a free plastic shooter gun on the front cover. This weighs about 60 grams and will be on each copy of the mag (which probably has a print run of around 75,000). You can almost guarantee that this isn’t going to last long and will be broken and in the bin within a few days. So that makes about 4,500 kg (about 5 tons) of plastic waste from one issue of one magazine. Let’s say it’s a four weekly title (13 issues per year), and you’ve now got 65 tons of plastic waste a year.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least 20 kid’s magazines (though there are probably nearer 40) in the UK which will each have to carry a gift (As supermarkets and newsagents have more or less agreed that they will not stock magazines for the under ten’s market unless it is cover gifted, or it’s very well established like the Beano.) That’s now 1,300 tons (about 130 London Buses) of plastic waste a year (at least) created by the children’s publishing industry. And that’s just final waste product, without considering the pollution caused by the factories creating the items, or the people in Chinese sweatshops being paid a few pennies to make 70,000 key rings, day in day out. Or the pollution from transportation (as they are mostly imported from the Far East.)

I know there are a lot worse polluters out there and this probably seems slightly trivial but, as I work in this sector, it’s something I feel I can actually try to change and would desperately like to make other people aware of.

Tryphena Absent

11:16 / 31.01.06

That's not trivial in the slightest.

4)A reduction in surplus commercial plastic packaging
a)in the food industry
b)in the media (just think of the Guardian weekend- and magazine subscribers always receive plastic wrapping- it's not just [newstrade] children's magazines)

11:33 / 31.01.06

My company only seems to have a paper recycling policy. Plastic is obviously seen as too hard to be bothered with!

Until recently, I worked for a local council. Although it promoted recycling in the community, it did little in the way of encouraging its employees to recycle at work. Again, we had paper recycling but no plastic. I queried why the council (Edinburgh) only offered very limited plastic recycling at its public recycling banks (unlike London Borough of Ealing where we used to recycle all plastic). I was told it was because it was too difficult to sort into the different types of plastic, and anyway, most of it ended up being exported to the far east. I had to agree that we shouldn't just make it someone else's problem.

Does anyone know where most of our plastic packaging is produced? Does the UK actually have facilities that use recycled plastic?
I also assume that this group will push for the use of so-called bio-plastic bags which break down over a year or so?
Why can't supermarkets offer them (for a price) if they have to offer bags at all? Or paper? Or just tell the lazy customer to bring their own!

Not in the Face

12:13 / 31.01.06

Be Bop/Nina

The following set of links may be helpful in tackling businesses and recycling

Envirowise the government site on recycling and environmental advice for business

egeneration also seem to help businesses comply with environmental requirements and best practice

The Geeen Mark is the government recognised award scheme that organisations can apply for to demonstrate their commitment and success in environmental improvement

The Office of Government Commerce looks like it will also give you the information on what government bodies should be doing about sustainability as part of their procurement. Not sure where the info is on disposal as well but should be able to find it from there

London Environment Centre also do much the same type of things as the above organisations. I have been on one of their courses and it has some quite useful information.

Although none of those deal specifically with plastics, more with sustainability and recycling as a whole, they should give you some ideas for dealing with govt and business. We are required, as an organisation funded by the Learning and Skills Council to have environmental sustainability as part of our working practices and I am just beginning to look at this issue so thats about the limit of my help at the moment.

Although we as an organisation do a lot in terms of paper recycling we should probably look at plastic as well although I don't think we are too bad - we mostly use mugs and plates and have also stopped using the traditional water cooler system that relies on deliveries of vast bottles of water instead have a cooler linked directly to the mains. I am told this is saving us money and presumably better for the environment generally because we aren't part of the cylce of producing those huge water bottles (are they even recycled?)

Psi-L is working in hell

12:21 / 31.01.06

Definitely up for helping with this Nina/Lula.

For those who do have employers that use plastic cups, everyone should try and encourage them to sign up to the Save a Cup Recycling Scheme. An old employer of mine turned all their cups into pencils. Granted this is small-fry when you consider the total amount of plastic waste they probably produced, but it's still less being taken to the landfill site.

Tryphena Absent

12:25 / 31.01.06

They're reused, which is why they always go back to the company. I have stopped using the cooler at work and started drinking out of the tap. The water is perfectly fine and doesn't use the carbon required to 1)keep it cool and 2)create the stupid things. Everyone seems to think I'm weird because of it. I don't care.

12:36 / 31.01.06

Yes - and if one is really bothered by the tap water, there are always those filter jugs.

13:13 / 31.01.06

These two links seem to provide a good deal of info re the state of plastic recycling in the UK....

Waste and Resources Action Programme

and

Waste Online

Apparently there are plastic recycling factories in this country at the moment....they just don't have the capacity to cope with the amount of stuff we produce. There must be money to be made from turning old shopping bags into fleece products though....

pointless & uncalled for

14:54 / 31.01.06

I'm up for helping in as much as I can.

Firstly I would suggest that a dedicated and knowledgeable individual create a section on the wiki in order that we might be able to keep a coherent track of our actions.

Tryphena Absent

15:03 / 31.01.06

I think we're keeping this vaguely separate.

pointless & uncalled for

15:31 / 31.01.06

We could have a vaguely seperate wiki area.

16:02 / 31.01.06

I work in a government (well, public sector) office that doesn't recycle.

Tryphena Absent

16:08 / 31.01.06

Hello my friend. Perhaps you would like to pm one of us and let us know which part of the public sector you work for. Strictly confidential... of course.

pointless & uncalled for

19:02 / 31.01.06

If you find that any of the contact that you make with public sector bodies can also make use of the Freedom of Information Act. In theory you are not obliged to reference it for it to be applicable to any "information that you might be seeking", however the mention of it does have a tendancy to make civil servants sit up straight and look busy.

Incidentally, having spent three years working for them, I do know how to write correspondence to civil servants in their own terms and would be happy to help in any drafting.

lord henry strikes back

19:21 / 31.01.06

I will hold my hands up and admit to being a civil servant. I work for a pretty big branch (I will pm nina in a minute with details). I'm very new so I'm still getting a feel, however, as far as I can tell, while we do recycle all paper the paper that we can (certain things have to be fully destroyed, burned I believe) there appears to be no real policy on anything else (not even cans, which already annoys me). My point is: do you have any specific questions I could ask or statutes that I could cite? I'm not sure how far a general 'I think we should, like, recycle more' type request is going to get me.

This really is a great idea though, I want in, how else can I help?

pointless & uncalled for

19:50 / 31.01.06

(certain things have to be fully destroyed, burned I believe)

Not technically true.

There are a handful of companies out there that do offer a recycling method of confidential waste destruction that is used by a few small sections of larger departments and profess to be able to comply with the necessary standards required for governmental confidental waste disposal.

If you are interested in bringing in more recycling into the workplace then you need to do so in a gentle and diplomatic manner. The first step would be to enquire in a team meeting situation if such facilities exist. This brings it out in an open arena and gets people thinking about it while giving an opportunity for someone to advise if existing facilities exist but are obscured by minimalism.

If the answer is no then you follow up by asking if it is possible. Don't labour the point at this stage, doing so will make you appear an annoying soap-boxer, but use this as an opportunity to guage how much support there is for recycling. From there you should be able to find the most productive way of getting it started.

20:24 / 31.01.06

Olulabelle: Do you work for a big company? Do they recycle and if so what? Are your plastics recycled? Do you know if your company has a recycling policy?

Yes; and they recycle absolutely nothing. We don't have a policy either. I tend to re-use every bit of paper (using the blank sides as notepads) and every six months or so I will take all my scrap paper / notepads home and recycle them. We aren't allowed to take mugs to work either, so there's shedloads of plastic waste too.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure that's even relevant, it just makes me so mad once I'm on the topic I can't really stop...

At home, I recycle almost everything, not least because our council let us chuck everything into the one bag and it's sorted out later, which is nice when there's not loads of floor space in the kitchen.

Tryphena Absent

11:30 / 01.02.06

The company I work for recycles cardboard, paper (and envelopes) and plastic bottles. I take glass to an external, street services recycling bin and collect plastic bags. What bothers me personally is not what my workplace is doing but the fact that it doesn't need to all of those things.

In addition I'm aware of the amount of plastic that goes into a landfill site, despite the fact that I live in Camden, which is a very good area for recycling. This entire country should be operating on the same zero waste policy that Chew Magna in Somerset has adopted.

Something a bit dodge is going on when DEFRA's aims for glass, paper and etc. are 60% but the plastic recycling target is only 22.5%.

12:04 / 01.02.06

I think plastic recycling is one of those things that seems bloody obvious to anyone that cares but all but ignored by the government (who might lose votes). A bit Like aviation fuel - why isn't it taxed like petrol?

If help is needed in Scotland let me know....

pointless & uncalled for

13:14 / 01.02.06

Something a bit dodge is going on when DEFRA's aims for glass, paper and etc. are 60% but the plastic recycling target is only 22.5%.

This is exactly where you should be using the Freedom of Information Act. If you don't know why something is as it is then you can ask about it. If you want to PM me your e-mail and a link to the web page that states this target I'll draft you an e-mail that should get some answers on this.

Tryphena Absent

14:50 / 01.02.06

Excellent though I suspect it may be something to do with the cost of a recycling plant that we don't currently have.

SK, I'll get back to you later today.