Action Briefing Oct 2004 - Nov 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Recycling plastic: why shouldn't we?

Birmingham Friends of the Earth's waste and recycling campaigners attended the City Council's sustainability forum 'Recycling Plastics: Why Should We?' on Wednesday 22nd September at the Council House, Victoria Square. Both the mood and the messages were decidedly mixed.

Chaired by Deputy Leader of the City Council John Hemming, the Forum kicked off with Chief Executive of national plastics recycling charity Recoup Andrew Simmons' up-beat assessment of the potential for plastics recycling in Birmingham and beyond. He made it clear that where there's a will, there's a way and with careful planning plastics recycling can make financial as well as environmental sense.

Malcolm Harold, Senior Consultant with Warwick University's International Manufacturing Centre, was somewhat ambivalent about plastics recycling and saw bio-packaging as the way forward. Unlike steel, the physical properties of plastic degrade on processing and, said Mr Harold, "the logistics in moving recycled plastic in sensible quantities is highly questionable when viewed with virgin material." He added that, "the high volume business of fossil origin plastics makes development of new biodegradeable plastic products/markets almost prohibitively expensive". So, it looks as if we should be prioritising waste minimisation - cutting the amount of plastic we produce and waste in the first place - and recycling what cannot be reasonably done without.

Waste Minimisation Officer Phil Brookes’ presentation was particularly depressing given that he holds the title of 'Project Manager for the Birmingham City Council Plastic Recycling'.The audience warmed to Mr Brookes' self-deprecating humour but his woolly and dismissive meanderings made for an less than constructive contribution to the debate. Recycling's just too difficult, you see. Give people wheelie bins and they'll just find more rubbish to fill them with. Mr Brookes also bemoaned the lack of participation (people, it seems are not recycling the 'right things'). And it's just so much easier to burn our rubbish instead. Mr Brookes evidently sees the Council's contract with Tyseley Waste Disposal Ltd. yoking Birmingham to the Tyseley 'energy-from-waste' plant for the next fifteen years as a positive boon to the City. Probably his biggest gaff was to assert that it's more sustainable to derive energy from burning plastic bottles than from burning fossil fuels. So when is a fossil fuel not a fossil fuel? When it's been processed into a plastic bottle and stuffed into an incinerator, it would seem. Nought out of ten for joined-up thinking, Phil.

Although plastic bottles make up only 2% of household waste collections by weight, they account for 10% by volume, and are disproportionately costly to collect when mixed in with other waste. Mr Brookes estimated that the City Council currently spend around £1.5 million collecting bottles mixed in with other waste. This money could be diverted to a plastics collection scheme, yielding material with a sale value of around £1 million.

Plans
There are definite plans to put plastic recycling units at the City's five 'household waste sites' (tips). It's a start, but we'll need to get our skates on if we're to meet the target of an 18% recycling rate by 2005-6 and the much higher targets beyond. Increasing the number of 'bring' facilities, such as bottle banks, especially at supermarkets, themselves the source of much of the waste plastic in the first place, may be of limited value.

Many UK cities and London boroughs are managing to perform well in recycling and meet their targets, despite the apparently awesome handicap of a demographic profile not dissimilar to Birmingham. Effective and engagement with communities is the key to participation. And adopting an integrated approach to waste focusing on minimisation and kerbside collections would allay the misgivings of those who fear that fortnightly general refuse collections will precipitate the end of civilisation as we know it.

Overall, the Forum was a very worthwhile event and we are encouraged by Cllr John Hemming's efforts to push sustainability up the Council's agenda. We are particularly pleased that a new 'Sustainability Action Team' is being set up and are looking forward to participating fully in this initiative.

James Botham and Andy Pryke

Wasters?
Is the Midlands a region of wasters? During April 2004 Prudential interviewed over 1,000 adults across the UK to explore how much people waste in their everyday lives. The Pru's Soggy Lettuce Report 2004 revealed that the average Brit wastes £1,725 (more than the average credit card debt) on food, luxury items, entertainment, travel, gadgets and hobbies each year. Combined, the nation throws away £80.6 billion every twelve months. More money (£424 per person) is wasted on food each year than any other category of goods or services.

In the Midlands it seems we're slightly more frugal. The average Midlander wastes £1,665 per year, 3% lower than the national average. However, more food is wasted in the Midlands than in any other region of Britain (£442 per person each year).

We're wasting more than the national average on gadgets (£80 per person compared to £68 million nationally) and travel (£314 million against £284 million nationally) but less than the national average on luxuries (£274 million compared to £326 million nationally), entertainment (£201 million against £246 million nationally), and hobbies (£354 million against £378 nationally). In total, the Midlands' 7.5 million population wastes £12.5 billion a year. A good incentive to start minimising!

James Botham