UK’s plastic federation calls for control over waste exports

The British Plastics Federation (PBF) has published a position paper – Vision for Circular Economy – calling for tightened control over exports of plastic waste to developing countries.
 
Supporting a 2018 Norway proposal to the UN Basel Convention, which provides an avenue to control the quality of exported plastic waste, BPF said the move was in line with current efforts in the UK to boost recycling rates.
 
Referring to the producer responsibility regulations in the UK, the association said that achieving national recycling rates, particularly within the consumer packaging segment, has been largely dependent on exporting of partially sorted and part-processed waste plastic. 
 
“The BPF has been vocal in the past about the need to reduce reliance on plastic waste exports and, at the same time, drive investment to expand national recycling capacity in the UK,” the trade body noted in a 30 April statement. 
 
In view of the public outcry about low-grade plastic waste exports to developing countries and the increasing ban on imports of waste by Southeast Asian countries, the BPF said its position paper sets out a strategy “for a future sustainable materials flow for plastics”.
 
The paper, it added, proposes a set of quality criteria that can be applied to ensure plastic waste exports can be recycled “in an environmentally sound manner” once these reach their final destination.