Household refuse that is being sent overseas for recycling is being dumped,
burnt or strewn across the streets in less developed countries.
Britain exports about 12m tons of material for recycling as part of its
environmental waste strategy, but a Sunday Times investigation has found
some of these exports – known as “green list” – are being incinerated or
dumped in pits.
At one plastics market on the outskirts of Delhi, where all British waste is
officially prohibited to help protect the environment, a trader last week
showed a reporter a batch of recyclables he had been unable to sell. It
included an empty packet of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference dry-cured
unsmoked bacon rashers – a range launched after chef Jamie Oliver started
advising the company; a Bernard Matthews turkey ham packet; and a Sungrove
orange juice carton. The plastics and other materials that cannot be sold
are quietly incinerated.
The recycling industry insists the vast bulk of material sent abroad is used
and the environmental impact is monitored closely. However, while regulators
say there is a legitimate global trade, they are concerned many of the
“green list” exports are not properly sorted or contain materials of mixed
quality.
Although English and Welsh councils count all of the materials sent overseas
in their official recycling figures, the reality is that a significant
proportion is quietly burnt, buried in landfill or simply left strewn on the
street. One senior Chinese academic has accused Britain of using his country
as a rubbish tip “exporting pollution and turning a profit at the same time”.
Householders are being urged to recycle, but there is almost no demand in this
country for some of the waste collected, such as sandwich cartons, yoghurt
tubs and plastic trays, and they are traded on the world markets.
Professor Chris Coggins, who runs a waste consultancy, said: “In this country,
it would most likely go to landfill so it will get sent overseas. But
whether it’s technically legal and whether there’s a market is another
question.”
Mundka, a sprawling village on the western edge of Delhi, is one of the
destinations for British mixed plastics. It is Asia’s biggest plastic scrap
market, although officially no foreign waste is permitted.
Rahul Kumar, a dealer of plastic scrap, last week showed a reporter some of
the “left-over” plastics in his yard. Displaying an assortment of containers
from Britain, he said: “This stuff will not get much money and we find it
difficult to sell.” Plastic bottles are in greater demand, fetching about
15p per pound.
Plastics are recycled by melting and shredding the material, which can then be
manufactured into new packaging or products. But some of it is not fit for
processing because it is too dirty and damaged or is a “composite” plastic
that cannot be reprocessed.
Mohammad Tariq, senior programme officer with Toxics Link, an environment
group, said: “Whatever can’t be sold is quietly burnt.” He said there had
been a huge fire in an open field in Mundka earlier in the year where
traders burnt unwanted plastic, releasing dioxins and other toxins into the
air.
“The problem is that this entire process of sorting and recycling is not
monitored,” said Tariq. “We want it to be done under the guidance of the
rules and norms of the pollution control board, but that is not happening.”
As Britons get into the habit of recycling, waste consultants say the amount
of recyclable material being sent overseas is likely to double over the next
few years. Some reprocessing companies that handle waste for councils
carefully trace and audit the destination of the material they send, but
others sell it to agents and brokers and lose track of it.
Some of the containers shipped overseas do not even contain sorted recyclable
materials, but an illegal mix of household rubbish, glass and plastics. The
Environment Agency has prosecuted companies for this, but the problem of
contamination is still understood to be widespread.
Hong Kong is a common destination for Britain’s recyclables. From there, it is
often shipped up the Pearl river into China’s Guangdong province where it is
sorted. One of the settlements that thrives on this industry is Mai, on the
delta of the Pearl river. Once a small village, it is now an industrial
sprawl where paper is sorted in small concrete factories and plastic is
chopped into pellets for recycling.
Dozens of factories importing mixed British household rubbish relocated to Mai
this year after Chinese officials ordered businesses to move from the town
of Nanhai, two hours’ drive away in Guangdong, because of an outcry over
environmental pollution.
Migrant workers in Mai earn about £1.75 a day sorting the rubbish. Tesco and
Sainsbury’s bags flutter in the streets and the waterways are clogged with a
rejected and slimy morass of plastic and paper. The streets are strewn with
shredded paper and other rubbish.
The materials arriving from Britain are rarely cleanly sorted, as they should
be by UK law. “It’s dirty and it’s all mixed together when it arrives,” said
Zhang Wulong, 19, a worker in Mai. “The stuff which can’t be recycled is
sent to landfill.”
Ma Taiwei, 22, from Guangxi province, who works in another factory, said many
of the workers toiled in the belief they would find British money among the
rubbish. “I heard of one case where a woman worker found a big bundle of
English pound notes,” she said. “I won’t stay here for too long – just until
I find some money and then I will go back to my home village.”
Residents complain the recycling industry has had a devastating impact on
Mai’s environment. “Everything is polluted,” said Liang Zhi Hua. “Until a
few years ago we had clean streams and fields. Now the water is filthy and
full of rubbish and chemicals. We can’t grow any vegetables in the fields
because they are covered in plastic and waste.”
Although British processors argue China has a huge demand for raw recycling
materials, there is growing anger over the environmental cost. Gaoming
Jiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany,
launched a scathing attack on the waste industry earlier this year, saying:
“Overseas waste dumping is a classic case of countries exporting their
problems.”
The Chinese authorities and British recycling companies are working to ensure
materials are processed in designated areas where environmental conditions
are carefully monitored. But despite this, the ad hoc and unregulated
recycling industry continues to thrive.
Indonesia is another destination for recycling material. The country has had
repeated problems with waste being sent from Britain without being properly
sorted and now conducts rigorous checks at the port of entry.
Wrap, the organisation that promotes recycling in Britain said the country
was, in the main, exporting good quality material. “The idea that Chinese
manufacturers are paying the high prices they are for plastics and paper
because they want to burn them or bury them and damage their environment is
illogical,” it said.
http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=8884
This article in Letsrecycle supports your article
Eric, Oxford,
I think the idea of sending the plastic bags and bottles is a good idea for the poor people to make money to help there family survive .We might aswell send the plastic as we hardly ever use the bottles and plasctic bags. We also sould send the bags to africa as they need the money aswell but the down is the plactic might burn in the boiling african heat . But the pupils of John Wycliffe Primary School were shocked when we found out the got paid only £1.75 a day and that 12 million tones of rubbish was being imported into other foriegn countrys. When they go searching for English money i think a is a waste as there is a 1 in a million of find fare couple of pounds. When people throw the rubbish into : Fields, Rivers and the street. They go blaming us for dumping the rubbish into : Jakata ,Hong Kong ,Mai and Delhi they said they will recyle the plastic bags and plactice bottles.There pay should at least £10 pound a day.
Calum Goodwin, lutterworth, England
Just shows what a load of old (literally) rubbish recycling is all we are doing is exporting it
david james, gosport, uk
The key to effective recycling is a PROFIT for everyone--homeowner (lower rates), City (lower costs), waste collection company (selling recyclible materials.
Those in Anaheim, and other California cities must put all rubbish in three bins--1 for plant waste, 1 for recyclable plastics/paper/metals/ glass, and 1 for non-recyclable trash.
The company winning the contract to pick up all wastes makes a healthy profit from the recyclables, At a LOCAL facility, minimum wage employees separate glass, plastics, etc., which is then sold to the recyclinhg industry. Plant waste goes to the City of Anaheim to be composted, used in City parks or given FREE to residents. Only the everyday garbage goes into a LOCAL landfill.
Other items such as computers, refrigerators, or cars are disposed of separately at a PROFIT. They are shredded and mechanically separated into their component materials, from steel to gold to plastics to aluminium. Then, they are sold at a healthy PROFIT.
Bob Evans, Anaheim, California