The title may sound odd to ordinary people, but the sad fact is that the global “recycling” industry has significantly added to the marine plastic litter problem.
I have put recycling in quotes because only a small fraction of plastic recovered from consumers is actually recycled: the material collected is dirty and so mixed up that it is impossible to produce the high-quality raw material required by, for example, the food-packaging industry. Most recovered plastic is simply burned or dumped: on land, in rivers, or even directly in the oceans.
Unable to recycle waste in line with the targets imposed on them, rich countries have chosen to dump it — plastic, paper, and cardboard — on poor ones, especially China.
Lower environmental standards in much of Asia has made it cheaper to manage waste there and low-quality recycled plastic can sometimes be profitably produced from these waste streams, albeit in highly polluted conditions.
In recent years, the stream of waste delivered to China expanded vastly. Annual imports reached 85 million tons, including 8 million of plastic.
The quantity was so huge that inspection at ports became impossible, and the unscrupulous found that even mixed or hazardous waste could profitably be sent, disguised as “recycling” to avoid landfill tax or high management costs in rich countries.
Unable to handle this tsunami of refuse, the Chinese were forced to either burn or dump vast quantities. An unknown amount found its way to the oceans.
The consequences for the environment and for public health of this “recycling” madness have therefore been horrendous, and have ultimately proved too high for the Chinese, who have now banned waste imports entirely.
Recent figures suggest that recycling businesses in the UK have responded by simply shipping waste to Asian countries with even weaker environmental standards. So even more waste will end up in the oceans in future.
Meanwhile, the EU is doing almost nothing to reduce the flow of waste. It is sticking to its idealistic environmental dreams, claiming to be in the forefront of efforts to save the oceans through a “circular economy” strategy.
History tells a different story — efforts to focus on recycling have led to one environmental disaster to another, with the ocean plastic crisis being just the latest.
Readers may recall the waste crisis in the Italian region of Campania, which was overwhelmed by so-called “ecoballs” — the two-thirds of plastic waste that was rejected by its sorting facilities. The streets were awash with rubbish, dioxins spread across the region, and the eventual breakdown of public order.
It should be understood that all recycling schemes – including paper recycling — leak either plastic litter or microplastic to the environment. If we truly care about saving the oceans, then recycling of plastic and paper should stop. And there is a clear and sensible alternative available, namely incineration.
Incineration was the way Campania put its waste management system back on an even keel. It is also the basis of the waste management strategy of many EU countries, and as such has proven to be hugely successful on all measures.
Yet despite this clear superiority to other approaches, incineration is being dismissed and discouraged, by EU politicians and bureaucrats, but most importantly by the unholy alliance of “recyclers” and green NGOs, who together lobby for ever-more complicated recycling schemes.
If the EU was serious about its war against marine pollution it should consider banning the export of plastic waste rather than banning plastic straws.
As someone once said, “Where there’s muck, there’s brass”. Unfortunately, as far as recycling is concerned the price is paid, not just by ordinary consumers, but by the oceans and the rest of the natural environment.
Dr. Mikko Paunio is a Finnish public health specialist and an adjunct professor in general epidemiology at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of the new GWPF paper Save The Oceans – Stop Recycling Plastic
I can still remember the stupid TV ads from EDF with a picture of the earth being crumbled up and the narrator saying IF YOUR NOT RECYCLING YOUR THROWING ALL AWAY but remember also the EDF used kids in its false Global Warming/Climate Change ads and the idiots wanting us to go vegan over this who big lie
Having been in the plastics recycling business in South Africa in the early 1970’s I know from first-hand experience that the recycling of plastic waste does not make financial sense. The cost of collecting, then separating, then cleaning, then shredding, then compounding, then bagging and distributing makes recycled plastic wholly uneconomic. It is the usual “green” brain-dead thinking that promotes this kind of bad economics onto equally brain-dead politicians whose only priority is to “appear to be doing something, anything” to give them the impression that they are actually useful. This report will make no indent on the “green” nightmare we’re all living through; what will I do not know.
The article over looked one benefit of recycling. It makes those doing it feel good. Like many other issues, it doesn’t matter if the action being taken actually works, all that matters is people feeling good.
I know that some people have a very effective means of disposing of plastic. When we lived in Bellevue I would walk on a forest path that went through the suburbs. I could tell by what I smelled that people were burning plastic. Went it is burned not even ashes are left. It produces heat and offsets the cost of heating.
Well, David, you’re right. I was disgusted by the amount of plastic that flew out of the recycling truck. I complained to the local councillor. He said that once a contractor was signed on, it became a performance issue, and they didn’t want to go down that road.
So I put my plastics in clear used bags and taped them closed. Made me feel good.
I crush my tin cans so that my recycling box holds more. I put my recyclables out once a month, so the truck doesn’t have to stop every week. Makes me feel good.
But that’s not good enough. I need to stop using drinking straws. Now I feel bad. Whatever I do is never good enough. These enviro’s are skull – fokkers.
About 1989, a huge pile of used tires was a major issue in Ontario. The owner wanted to generate electricity with them. No way, said the authorities. They must be recycled. Tire companies said they couldn’t make them into new tires, with a reasonable explanation. An under age indigenous youth lit them up. Two years less a day for him, the owner of the tire pile was bankrupted by Ontario.
Now it’s OK to generate electricity with tires.
I once read that those little Bumper and Window stickers from many of those Eco-Wacko groups are made from paper/plastic that cant be recycled and they have produced a dumb song REDUCE,REUSE,RECYCLE i only recycle because i need the extra money