Plastic in Dorset: The Facts
Warning: this post contains statistics!
So far on my travels I've met many children and teachers who are deeply (and rightly) concerned about the problem of plastic in the oceans and its effect on marine wildlife and the human food chain. David Attenborough's Blue Planet II, along with films like A Plastic Ocean have opened our eyes to the scale of the problem and sparked action from communities across the globe. Dorset is no exception, with brilliant community initiatives like Wimborne War on Waste and the Plastic-Free Dorchester initiative. |
| Some of the effects of plastic waste in Asia |
You can find statistics out there to fill all the squared exercise books in Dorset. Scientists have estimated that the amount of plastic entering the oceans is between 4.8 and 12.7 MILLION metric tonnes (view), and last year we learned that up to 95% of the plastic waste in the oceans comes from 10 highly polluted rivers running through densely populated regions of Africa and Asia (view). Predictions have been made that my 2050 the plastic in the oceans will weigh more than the fish. While some people question the comparison, everyone agrees the amount of plastic in the oceans is huge and growing.
Evidently there are big questions about how waste is managed (or not) in other, mostly poorer, parts of the world. But how are we in Dorset contributing to the problem? What's our role?
Prompted by my visit to Durweston Primary school and the children's questions, I felt it was time to get some facts!
The information below was provided by the Dorset Waste Partnership (DWP), who oversee all the waste and recycling collections for Dorset households and businesses. So while it may not be a complete reflection of every single thing used and thrown away in the county, it's a good starting point.
1. How much plastic do we use?
It would be incredibly difficult to work out how much plastic is actually bought and used each year in Dorset. But from the waste and recycling figures we can say something about how much is thrown away. In Dorset:-
13% of the recycling collected by DWP each year is plastic. That equates to 3,900 tonnes of plastic recycling each year in Dorset.
Statistics from Dorset Waste Partnership - That includes 84 million plastic bottles a year (calculation by DWP).
2. How much gets recycled?
A child at Durweston Primary had read a statistic that only 25% of the plastic we put in to recycling bins actually gets recycled....which would be very worrying indeed. But is it true?DWP were able to fill me in....
As far as plastic goes, the proportion that actually gets recycled varies. It's more than 25%, but different factors might mean that plastic collected for recycling can't actually be recycled. For example, if the plastic isn't clean it contaminates the recycling. Or certain items that are made of low-grade plastic may not be recyclable.
Recycling services are different throughout the country. This is because there are many different types of plastic, and councils need to be able to sort them efficiently and have a system for recycling each of the different types of plastics. Some councils collect certain types of plastic, e.g plastic bottles. We are fortunate in Dorset that we can put a range of plastic items in our recycling collections:
- plastic bottles (including milk, soft drinks, shampoo, shower gel, cleaning products)
- plastic pots (including yoghurt, cream, soup)
- plastic tubs (including margarine, butter, ice cream)
- plastic trays (including fruit and vegetable punnets)
- plastic lids (they must be placed back on the plastic bottles, pots and tubs)
BUT there's a further complicating factor! Most plastic recycling is sent abroad to be processed, so the ability to recycle it also depends on the availability and cost of recycling abroad at any given time.
It's starting to look terribly complicated! What do we know for certain? That we use A LOT of plastic, and that SOME of it is recycled. It's hard to be more accurate than that.
Contact your recycling provider yourself and ask for some information.
3. Does our plastic end up in the sea?
This is a tricky one. If you drop rubbish on the ground, or put it in an overflowing bin, then that rubbish will end up in the environment. It might stay close to home (e.g. get stuck in a hedge), or it might get washed into a river and potentially out to sea. Anyone who's done a litter pick along a river will have seen how much plastic and other litter collects in the vegetation and in the waterway, and we know it can cause harm to wildlife. Rubbish left on beaches will almost certainly wash into the sea and cause harm.Compared to the amount of plastic delivered to the oceans by those 10 African and Asian rivers, it's not a lot. But it still makes our towns and countryside look untidy and feel less safe and enjoyable. It harms our local wildlife and potentially hurts wildlife in faraway places.
Thanks to the good waste collection and recycling services we have in the UK, any rubbish that we dispose of carefully - by recycling or putting it in a waste bin - should not end up in the oceans. It does still have an environmental impact though - think of landfill sites, pollution from incineration or the energy cost of recycling.
4. Why else should we worry about plastic?
So.....while litter is a problem, Dorset's waste plastic probably isn't responsible for most of the ocean pollution we hear about. But there are important reasons why we should be worried about plastic. Whilst researching this, I learned two facts that really made me stop and think:Fact 1: Making plastic uses energy and resources
Plastic is made from oil. The oil - a non-renewable resource - has to be extracted from deep underground, transported to a refinery, then to a chemical plant to be made into nurdles, transported again to a factory where it's made into the final product which is transported AGAIN to a depot.....you get the idea. Every stage uses energy and involves the release of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
This paper, by researchers at the Pacific Institute analysed the amount of energy that is used to manufacture, fill, cool and transport bottled water. They estimated that the energy inputs of producing bottled water is up to 2000 times that of producing tap water. The manufacture and transport of the bottle were the most energy-consuming stages.
In a world of climate change and a growing population, is this how we want to be using the Earth's finite resources?
Fact 2: Plastic can't be recycled infinitely.
Whilst glass and aluminium can be endlessly melted and re-shaped, the bad news is that plastic can't. The water bottle you recycle won't come back to you as another shiny water bottle. While it can be recycled a few times, plastic eventually loses quality and generally gets 'downcycled' i.e. made into something of a lower quality than the original material. So your plastic bottle may become a plant pot, and then perhaps a fleece.....but then that's it! Done! It can't be recycled any further.
So the ability to recycle plastic doesn't make our huge plastic consumption all ok. As we learned above, not all plastic gets recycled, and recycling has an energy cost (think of the lorries required to transport the recycling to the processing plant, and the energy to clean, melt and re-mould the plastic). And when plastic is recycled, you quickly end up with low-quality plastic that you're stuck with forever.
5. What should we be doing?
Given that the resource cost of producing plastic is so high and that plastic recycling isn't without its problems, there's really only one answer to this question: use less of it.- Buy less plastic, particularly single use plastics; they are environmentally costly to produce but used for only a short time.
- Re-use the plastic you have for as long as you can.
