Church member, Jane Barker took part in the Big Plastic Count, joining thousands of households across the UK in building the evidence needed to show the government that the plastic crisis hasn’t gone away – and that the only real solution is to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place.
In one week Jane used 48 bits of plastic. Over a year that’s equivalent to 2,496 pieces of plastic. If all households were like Jane’s, the UK would use 70,137,600,000 bits of plastic each year. The amount of plastic produced globally keeps rising. One simple way to reduce it is to stop wrapping fresh fruit and vegetables in plastic. Cutting this unnecessary packaging would mean less plastic in our homes, less waste burned in incinerators and less of our rubbish shipped overseas..
Jane’s plastic packaging waste was 88% food and drink, 10% cleaning and toiletries and 2% everything else. Most packaging is single-use- designed to be used once and then thrown away. For a lot of people, plastic packaging from food and drink will be the highest percentage. If supermarkets reduced the amount of fruit and vegetable wrapping, it would significantly cut single-use plastic waste.
42% of her plastic was hard plastic. Hard plastic is a lot easier to recycle than soft plastic. While hard plastic is recyclable, there are still many items that are less likely to be recycled such as soap bottle pumps, polystyrene chips and toothpaste tubes.
58% of her plastic was soft plastic. Soft plastic like plastic bags and wrappers are difficult to recycle and often end up burned or exported. Councils are increasingly collecting soft plastics in kerbside collections, but the real solution is producing far less of this hard-to-recycle plastic in the first place.
21% of plastic packaging waste is recycled in the UK, 20% is exported, 8% sent to landfill and 51% incinerated. Plastic waste that is sorted and reprocessed in the UK is turned into new materials but in the last 2 years 21 plastic recycling and processing plants in the waste, sending around 600,000 tonnes abroad each year, much to lower income countries including Malaysia and Indonesia. But here in the UK more plastic waste is being burned than ever. This releases carbon, toxins and pollutants into the air presenting numerous health risks to local communities and contributing to climate change.
- So the Big Plastic Count is calling on the Government to:
Remove plastic packaging from uncut fruit and vegetables by 2030. - Stop the construction of any new waste incinerators immediately across the UK following the lead of Scotland and Wales.
- Make sure plastic is not sent abroad for other countries to deal with.
Thanks to Jane for sharing her results. Has anyone else been involved in the survey?
Check out The Big Plastic Count website for more details – thebigplasticcount.com