UK to recycle double the plastic bottles than before

27-May-05

Plastic bottle collection facilities have been offered by 73% of all UK local authorities - 348 councils out of the 477 UK local authorities. Local authorities of UK now collect over 48,000 tons of plastic bottles each year to recycle them - comprising 10.5% of the bottles in the household waste stream. The country is recycling almost twice as many plastic bottles as it did two years ago. The collections will comprise approximately 66% via kerbside collections and 33% through bring schemes. However, the economics of plastic bottle collection have resulted in just 53 local authorities saying that it costs them little or no extra to collect bottles for recycling compared to collection for landfill. It is estimated that the provision of plastic bottle recycling within kerbside collections will exceed 10.9 million households during 2006. This means 44% of all UK households will be able to recycle plastic bottles on their doorstep. By 2007, over 65,000 tons of plastic bottles are estimated to be collected for recycling. In USA, the state of California has also taken a proactive approach to raising recycling rate. California's Department of Conservation has released statistics showing that residents recycled a total of 12 billion aluminum, glass and plastic California Refund Value beverage containers in 2004. Clear plastic containers increased 30% in total volume recycled in 2003 to 2.5 billion containers compared. The Department of Conservation credits the increase in the recycling rate to a number of factors, including a higher California Refund Value that took effect in January 2004.