Britain seeks to substantially increase plastic recycling rate

UK set a goal of plastic recycling rate of 2017, plan to increase the overall recovery rate to 42%.

During the meeting of 16th Germany international plastics recycling, the speaker from UK emphasized the expansion and improvement of the current system of recycling. Previously the UK was considered an excessive reliance on exporting waste materials to China.

According to the research, it shows that there’s no any increase on the quotas of waste recycling (PRN) for UK packaging, but export quotas (PERN) has doubled. The recycling quota is authorized by the UK government, the certificate issued by the recyclers to ensure that the waste materials have been recycled into new products. The export quotas PERN is the proof that every ton of exported waste materials was allocated from UK. People don’t think that the past importing regulation of China is strict, but the quality control of waste materials are extremely stick recently, which makes the reliability of the existing export trade is being questioned. UK hope to strengthen the construction of the domestic recycling market, reduce exports to utilize recycled materials as much as possible.

The British Plastics Association (BPF) proposed adding a method of prize and punishments to existing recycling activities, to ensure that UK recyclers are willing to participate in increasing the amount of plastic recycled.