I remember watching an episode of countryfile about milk, they said that plastic was actually better than glass. Using glass requires lots more energy to make them, glass has a high breakage rate, it also takes a lot of energy to wash and sterilise them between uses. Wagons also use more fuel transporting them because they are heavier like for like than plastic.

When you dig down into the issues it's quite a difficult problem.

Complex matter. Where I work we produce tonnes of food packaging every year. Mostly cardboard based but some have small clear plastic windows in them. Retailers ask us to provide recyclable alternative, which we can but they are more expensive and they always say they can't afford it. Also it seems to me that local authorities have as many methods of recycling around as there are stars in the universe. Would it not be better to rationalise and standardise the way waste is recycled so the councils all do it the same way? The worst culprits are the luxury/best of/the best food products which are frequently encased in rigid plastics, might look nice but terribly polluting. I always though incineration is a very good idea but some don't but I am not qualified to comment on the pros and cons. All the packaging we do at work is FSC and all recyclable apart from the plastic element but until retailers understand that eliminating plastics costs money and they will have to pay that cost it will be a slow process. It can be done, think of carrier bags which you now need to pay for but the supermarkets didn't half resist that. However once one has the guts to make that step others invariably follow.

Do you have any real-world data on the dioxins and heavy metal pollutants produced and ejected int the air by the incineration processes - not from brand new, recently commissioned, incinerators but those with an operational and maintenance history?

Also, I thought studies had shown that recycling and reuse actually is more efficient than incineration as a whole-lifecycle process. Is this not the case?

I agree - in my view, we all should be doing our bit to curtail the use of plastics. When shopping, we tend to look for unwrapped produce e.g. foods such as cucumbers from Morrisons....

Interestingly Morrisons are one of our customers who feels the bodegradable plastic window option is too expensive!

I will bow to Klarzy’s greater knowledge here but you have -from how I understand the issues - hit the nail on the head Ian.

Plastic is cheap and easy to produce - the issue is what we do with the excess we produce.

Paper can be made from recycled material but the original is made from wood pulp and the manufacturing process is chemical and energy intensive. It’s not a “clean” process by any means.

Anyone living downstream from an old paper mill in the past may well remember how the paper mill destroyed life in the rivers.

Glass manufacturing and recycling is also hugely energy intensive. Glass product manufacturing/recycling emits a huge amount of CO2.

And we cannot have that can we.

Despite the fact that our respiration takes in air with circa 0.04% CO2 and each breath we exhale contains about 3.8% to 5% depending upon how much exercise we are doing at the time.

So in the CO2 production stakes!! - we are ALL as guilty as he**.

ho hum back to square 1

macafee2

They're currently breaking up a huge fatberg under Sidmouth, I think they said it was 200ft long. The cause?......wet wipes.

There are new technologies out there and newer and better technologies being developed. Old incinerator technology is not right for plastics - but the newer “containerised” incinerators captures the toxic chemicals such that they can be extracted and sold as a valuable bi-product.

There is also considerable research work on Thermolysis of waste plastic to produce a liquid fuel.

So it’s not all doom and gloom.


At least now more air is being used in packaging. My son sent me a bottle of aftershave for Fathers Day via Amazon.

A year or so ago it would have come in a box full of polystyrene “worms”. This time it came with one or two plastic “bladders” or balloons.

So the product was protected but the physical amount of plastic was a fraction of what was previously used.

I saw that as a small positive it what is clearly a bleak and serious scenario overall

It’s a serious criminal offence in Kenya if anyone is found carrying a plastic bag, or supplying them. Last week the President of Kenya announced “bans for single use plastic products in protected areas, beaches, parks, forests”. For a 3rd world country, it’s a step in the right direction. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.n...rsh/index.html The link contains a video of his announcement.