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Plastics in the Uk: Jonathan Cullen Practical and Pervasive Michal Drewniok

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Plastics in the Uk: Jonathan Cullen Practical and Pervasive Michal Drewniok PLASTICS IN THE UK: JONATHAN CULLEN PRACTICAL AND PERVASIVE MICHAL DREWNIOK ... BUT PROBLEMATIC. ANDRÉ SERRENHO SUMMARY Plastics are ubiquitous in and recycling of plastics is plastic waste in coming decades modern society, owing to their challenging. from all the products made usefulness, durability and how of plastic that we have been This report tackles this data cheap and easy they are to accumulating. problem by mapping plastic produce. This makes plastics flows through UK society, Recycling more plastics in the both a blessing and a curse. collating data from disparate UK could reduce incineration We manufacture a myriad sources on the production, emissions, avoid mismanagement of plastic materials, used in use, disposal and recovery of of exported waste and replace countless consumer products, plastics. With the resulting map the need for the production of which are highly valued by of UK plastic flows, we can new plastics. However, current society. Everything from milk understand the latest trends UK recycling capacity is only 12% bottles to window frames, in plastics use and identify of waste collected, and this is from sunglasses to face masks, opportunities for reducing the hampering the benefits recycling contains plastic. Plastics impacts of plastics in the future. could provide. are pervasive due to their We found that the way we There are several other practicality and profitability. have been disposing of plastics actions we should take, such And yet, plastics have a problem. plays a critical role in two as reducing excessive use of The making, use and disposal serious environmental impacts: plastic packaging, and reducing of plastics creates challenging greenhouse gas emissions and the range of polymers used in pollution issues. Significant CO2 plastic ocean pollution. These various products to improve emissions are released across problems arise because plastics recycling yields. These should the life-cycle of plastic products are not circular in the UK. Less be combined with improved and poor disposal means plastic than 3% of plastics consumed practices in the petrochemical makes its way into our waterways are made of UK recycled plastics, industry, and enhanced reuse and oceans, creating serious and the vast majority of waste and recycling of plastics to environmental impacts. ends up being incinerated, achieve a meaningful reduction landfilled or exported. Without in greenhouse gas emissions. Fixing this problem is not simple. any action this problem will get Even finding good data, on worse, as we will generate more the production, use, disposal The authors have asserted Thanks to: the Alliance for Available for download at: their right under the Copyright, Sustainable Building Products www.refficiency.org/ Designs and Patents Act 1988 (ASBP), Axion, British Plastic publications/the-p-word/ KEY MESSAGES to be identified as authors of Federation (BPF), PlasticEurope, this work. VinylPlus, RecovinylPlus and Research in this report is funded by UKRI as part of CirPlas: The • The two most important • Increasing recycling capacity • Action is urgently required Glass Alliance Europe for help in environmental impacts of in the UK could both reduce to reduce the impacts of Jonathan M. Cullen, Cambridge Creative Circular gathering the data. plastics are greenhouse gas emissions and prevent ocean plastics. We must address Michal P. Drewniok, Plastics Centre. André Cabrera Serrenho Please cite as: Cullen JM, emissions and ocean waste waste pollution. Our limited the excess use of packaging, pollution. These problems domestic recycling capacity the variety of polymers used Drewniok MP, Cabrera Serrenho Copyright © 2020 are being aggravated by the leads to waste exports to in similar products, practice A (2020) The ‘P’ Word – University of Cambridge way we have been disposing countries with poor waste in polymer production, Plastics in the UK: practical and of plastics. management practices. and promoting reuse and Design by New Rhythm Design pervasive ... but problematic.” recycling of plastics. PAGE THREE: SUMMARY The story of plastics over PLASTICS ARE the last 75 years is one of PRACTICAL insatiable growth driven by plastic’s prized properties and low costs compared with other materials. Demand for plastic, and From 1950 to 1990 global other materials production of plastic increased sixty-fold (from 1.5 to 90 Mt), compared with four times for Plastic 350 Cement steel, nine times for glass, and twelve times for aluminium. Aluminium Glass Growth has continued steadily from 1990 until today, with production increasing by three and a half times worldwide, as 250 Steel seen in Fig.2. During this period, Fig.1 Global annual primary plastic production, by end-use. plastic demand outpaced steel, glass and aluminium, and kept abreast with cement. Plastics are a uniquely practical The attractiveness of plastics production increasing from 1.5 x 1990=100 Much of this growth in demand group of materials. They are has led to rapid growth in the Mt in 1950 to 438 Mt in 2017 inde has been driven by increasing strong, lightweight, flexible and global plastics industry (Fig.1). (Fig.1). In fact, growth in plastic 150 populations and per captia durable. They can be shaped demand far outpaced global The first fully synthetic plastic, wealth in developing economies into almost any form. And they GDP over this period. called Bakelite (phenylol- around the world. In contrast, are cheap to make. formaldehyde) was invented by This has made plastics a demand for plastic in the UK The unique properties have led Leo Baekeland in 1907. By 1941, profitable business over many plateaued, with consumption to plastics being used in many more than 20 further plastic decades. remaining constant over the past thousands of products, bringing types (polymers) had been 50 decade, at about 6 Mt per year. Plastics are now used across convenience and ease to our created and plastics began a variety of sectors, including modern lives. Plastics find use finding their way into products in packaging (36%), building in supermarkets, in packaging to in housing, automotive, aviation, 0 and construction (16%) and the reduce food waste, in hospitals, and electrical products. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 textiles sector (14%), as well in protective clothing to limit However rapid growth in plastic as consumer and institutional infection, and in homes, in Fig.2 Demand for plastics is compared with steel, cement, production was only realised products (13%). appliances, phones, wires and aluminium and glass from 1950s onwards, with water pipes. PAGE FOUR: PLASTICS ARE PRACTICAL PAGE FIVE: PLASTICS ARE PRACTICAL 100% Types of plastic produced worldwide in 2017 Plastics PLASTICS Others 90% Additives encompasses ARE PS a myriad of PUR PERVASIVE 80% PET different PVC HDPE materials and 70% PP &A LDPE products, each PP 60% with their own unique properties, There aren’t official statistics The supply chains of plastics about plastics in the UK, and are complex, since each polymer only few disparate publications and application is sourced 50% uses and issues from PlasticsEurope and Waste in different ways. However, & Resources Action Programme most of the plastics used in (WRAP) show us snapshots of the UK were made in other for recovery a few stages along the supply countries, and most of them chain of plastics. However, this were imported as finished goods 40% data is still insufficient to tell sold to final consumers. For after use. us how much and which types this reason, the production of of plastics are used every year, plastics in primary form in the where they came from, on UK only supply less than 20% of We tend to think of plastics Plastics are defined as: any what products they are used UK consumption. as one uniform material. But of a group of synthetic or and how they are disposed of. Fig.3 shows that we use a huge 30% plastic, unlike other materials natural organic materials that And knowing this is essential variety of different polymers. such as steel, concrete and may be shaped when soft and to identify what problems are We even use several different paper, encompasses numerous then hardened. This includes being caused by plastics and polymers for the similar types materials (or chemical many types of resins, resinoids, what opportunities exist to of product. However, this formulations, as shown in Fig.3) polymers, cellulose derivatives, mitigate them. mixture the polymers causes and product configurations. casein materials, and proteins, which can be extruded into For this report, we had to additional problems when 20% This makes the recovery of shapes, used as coatings, drawn conciliate available data plastics are disposed of. Each plastic material after use into fibres and woven. on plastics with UK trade polymer has to be separated particularly challenging, as each statistics in order to estimate from waste, because it is chemical formulation needs to be Fig 4. shows the flow the the polymer composition in recycled in a different way. Yet, treated separately. plastics through the UK society, annual trade flows. By doing mixing polymers in products 10% including the production, import this, we were able to trace the makes it more difficult to and export of plastic materials flows of various polymers from separate them with enough visualised as a Sankey diagram. production to transformation, purity to allow recycling. Less use, and disposal. pure recyclates will also lead to POLYMER ABBREVIATIONS Polypropylene (PP), Low Density Polypropylene (LDPE),
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