Crawley's recycled plastic is not alone

4.20.17pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 16th Mar 2007

Following the report in the Crawley News about Crawley's re-cycled plastic ending up in China the Liberal Democrats have managed to compile figures that show there has been a massive growth in the amount of recycled material being sent there from the UK since 1997.

Over the last year alone, 1,900,000 tonnes nationally of plastics, paper, card and metals were exported. Reports suggest that many of these materials are ending up in illegal waste dumps, despite the fact that many of them include lead, which can enter water supplies and the food chain, causing damage to animal and human health.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Councillor Gordon Seekings said "It is no good recycling more here in Crawley or Britain as a whole if this simply ends up in a landfill site somewhere else. In the six years since Labour introduced their waste strategy, the total volume of waste generated each year has risen significantly."

Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary Chris Huhne MP (and former Crawley MEP) said "The Government should set a target of zero waste for all municipal rubbish in the UK by 2020. This would mean more doorstep collection of dry recyclables and reforming the landfill tax into a broader waste tax to remove the incentives for incineration and other less sustainable waste disposal options.

"People's goodwill will be undermined if newspapers, cans and plastic bottles they put out for recycling end up in China in waste dumps rather than being properly reused."

Notes:

1. Relevant national statistics relating to waste:

• Total municipal waste has gone up by 18% up since 1997 to 28.7 million tonnes in 2005/06

• The total amount of municipal waste produced in England is growing at around 1.5% per annum

• Total household recycling in the latest year was 7.8 million tonnes - 27% of all municipal waste

• In addition there are 22.6 million tonnes of industrial and commercial waste recycled (a third of all waste in that sector)

• Of a total of 30.4 million tonnes of recyclates, 6% (1.9 million tonnes) are sent to China

• 1.5 million tonnes of paper and card collected are sent to China - one tenth of all paper and card used in Britain

• The amount of recyclates being sent to China has increased 158-fold since 1997

Source: DEFRA Statistics:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wastats/archive/mwb200611.xls;

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/waste/download/xls/wrtb07.xls

http://www.recyclenow.com/facts/interesting_facts/index.html

and Parliamentary Answer:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070117/text/70117w0007.htm#07011790000692