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A NEW STUDY from Irish researchers suggests that nearly a third of plastic exported from Europe isn’t recycled.
The research, carried out by staff from NUI Galway and the University of Limerick, quantified for the first time the amount of plastic from European countries that ends up in oceans.
With 46% of European separated plastic exported from the country of origin, a large share of all the plastic used on the continent is transported to countries in south-east Asia for waste management.
The study quantifies something that has long been a concern for environmentalists – that much of the waste exported isn’t recycled at all.
George Bishop, the lead author of the study, said that the work indicates “an important and previously undocumented pathway of plastic debris entering the oceans, which will have considerable environmental and social impacts on marine ecosystems and coastal communities”.
Dr David Styles, a lecturer at the University of Limerick, said: “Given that such a large share of waste destined for recycling is exported, with poor downstream traceability, this study suggests that ‘true’ recycling rates may deviate significantly from rates reported by municipalities and countries where the waste originates.”
“In fact, our study found that up to 31% of the exported plastic wasn’t actually recycled at all,” he said.
The research, published in the scientific journal Environment International, looked at the best case, average and worst-case scenarios of the amount of exported recycling that ends up in the ocean.
The average figure for Ireland in 2017 is 3.15%. The comparable figure for the UK is 5.12%.
The study estimated that between 1-7% of all exported European polyethylene – one of the most common types of plastic – ended up in the ocean.
“Our study highlights the lack of available data on plastic waste,” said Professor of New Energy Technologies at NUIG, Piet Lens.
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How good would it be if Ireland could recycle all it’s own material onshore!
@DCforChange: the NIMBYists would make that reasonable concept nigh on impossible.
@DCforChange: There was a plan for that, I’m pretty sure it was shot down. Makes too much sense to have a completely sustainable system on the Island. Especially when you can pay someone to do it elsewhere, or not as is the case here. The jerky, slapstick 1930′s era movie rumbles on.
@DCforChange: Hard to even get a planning for a wind turbine or solar array here…..
@DCforChange: simple way is anaerobic digestors to take our food waste, human waste from septic tanks and animal waste. To create renewable energy that’s produced 24hrs. Has really good organic fertilizer as byproduct. Germany has about 10000 of them
Europe should stop using the ocean or other countries as dumping ground. China have stopped taking our rubbish since 2018 and sooner or later other Southeast Asian countries would do the same for their own good. Instead of dumping the plastics elsewhere Europe should invest in waste management and recycling technologies and address the plastic crisis from the root. In some places in Japan, 70% wastes are recycled which shows what can and should be done.
A lot of plastics on groceries is not necessary it might be a start to replace it with bio packaging
@James Delaney: think aurivio has started or is going to be using bio plastic for its cartons
I’m surprised it’s only 30%
Gotta start outlawing this junk, it will get recycled back into the food chain one way or the other.
@rodgerw@eircom.net: Aergia needs those grapes delivered in a plastic bag, in a cardboard box, on a crate wrapped in cling film, on a truck or she’ll be pissed off!
Recycling is like treating the symptoms but not the disease. We need to stop using plastic where ever possible, especially for single or short term use. Once it’s produced chances are it’s going to end up in the ocean and eventually, in your stomach.
There’s already microplastics in the water we drink, both tap and bottled.
So why are we taking all this care with sorting/separating the recycling, making sure it’s clean etc and paying for recycling if it’s not happening in the way it’s supposed to be. We are being mislead! You do the right thing and it still ends up where we don’t want or planned for it to go.
That’s probably because people show in Aldi and you can barely recycle anything from there. For years I was putting plastics from Aldi in the recycle bin. Worse is the same products and their packaging from Supervalu is recyclable.
@Edward Ucator: that’s your fault for not reading the packet. Aldi is a budget supermarket, Supervalu is not. It shows in the packaging.
Firsly we need to reduce the amount of unrecyclable plastics that companies use in packaging like polyethylene. I’d regularly see people putting cling film, wrappers and the like into the recycling bin and then this sends the problem onto recycling plants in Asia where they can’t be profitably recycled. No surprise when these end up being dumped improperly. We need to incentive companies using either compostable or recyclable packaging and levy them when they don’t. It’s the only way we’ll see changes.
The problem is China, who stopped ALL OF THE SUDDEN, to take in all plastic from the rest of the world, AFTER CHASED IT FOR THE PREVIOUS DECADE.
Such stop must have done gradually, giving other countries time to rearrange.
We’ve just allow (again) China to hang us by the b***s.
@Proudly Italian: Yeah how dare another country stop taking our rubbish. How dare they turn back unrecyclable junk that was supposed to be recyclable. How dare they deal with a problem we should be dealing with. They’re not a great bunch of lads AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!
@Proudly Italian: Why should anyone take your rubbish in the first place? You should eat it all
@TheHeathen: You’re wrong. They committed for YEARS to BUY every piece of scrap plastic. They looked into this for years.
Then, they realized wasn’t worth anymore, so just STOP.
You can’t just stop a huge commitment this way…. too simple.
@Seriousnojoke: They COMMITTED to BUY.
They were making money out of it. Nobody asked to take anyone else rubbish for free.
@Proudly Italian: Lol… you win. You are the king of the world and centre of the universe, everyone should bow to ya. All good? Lol…
@Seriousnojoke: I suggest you get better informed, before making any judgement.
I never said anything of the kind. Just saying we’re not DUMPING anything in S/E Asia. They willingly bought to make money out if it.
Do some research….
@Proudly Italian: private companies in China bought the waste. The working conditions were horrible and the factories polluted nearby towns and simply threw unrecyclables into rivers to the point that their government had to crack down on it. They still do accept some grades but it’s regulated.
@SC: It’s hardly beliavable that government wasn’t aware of what private companies were doing, and that the government puffed the wind right or left.
Horrible working conditions? Pollucting factories? This is a China’s problem, not else. China and Chinese people should fix it, like we did in the West in XIX century and beyond. Besides, that’s just the discovery of the hot water. Everybody known about this….
Al I am saying is, you CANNOT commit to clean the world’s plasic, and MAKE MONEY out of it, then simply walk away overnight…
@Proudly Italian: You do some research buddy. They had no problem taking clean plastic. They started to have a huge problem when the ‘West’ started sending container after container of dirty, rotting refuse, completely unrecyclable. We broke the rules so they stopped taking our refuse. China and most SE Asia countries sent back waste before banning it. The ‘West’ thought they could dump their waste on poor countries.
@Proudly Italian:
That’s the nature of global economics, if something becomes unprofitable, countries stop. China became richer and decided that they didn’t want to pollute their own environment. Their right.
Europe was happy to fool people into thinking that they are doing something good. Reality it send its own mess off in boats and turns a blind eye to cheap labour and an environmental nightmare.
This can be fixed quite simply. Tax single use plastic and it will disappear quite quickly.
@Proudly Italian: I agree. That was China’s problem and they solved it by clamping down on the private industry that was polluting their rivers. This was after substantial international criticism about them polluting the sea by the way. They are a sovereign nation and they can do what they want and are not so indebted to the west that they should have to take our rubbish.
70% recycle rate sounds quite good. But I agree, much better if we could recycle our own waste….
Uk survey found that 80% of waste on recycle bin was not recycled.
Seems we are all bei g told its recycled… But we have no idea where it goes
Isn’t that something governments should control?
If we (Ireland) as part of the developed countries cannot recycle single use plastic or do enough r/d into other uses for it we should stop buying items until manufacturers come up with a alternative solution
Bring in deposits on plastic bottles
I don’t understand why the makers of plastics are only allowed to make recyclable plastics ? Then we wouldn’t need to be throwing out large quantities of plastic that can’t be recycled, I don’t understand it
The likes of supermarkets should be selling products that can only be recycled
We are developing the tools that empowers anyone to map and share data on plastic pollution, anytime, anywhere
….And yet there is not one bin to be seen anywhere when I’m out and about. I would gladly pick up rubbish on my way and put them into.
Every state needs to reprocess its own waste materials.
Makes no sense to ship it across the world to less industrialised countries.
If necessary, the state should set up the infrastructure ,financed by plastic & wee levies, & direct hard core unemployment, hard labour prisoners, refugees to gainful employment to do our own reprocessing.
have your say