Viridor and the BBC’s the One Show have combined their resources over the need to act now to stem the tide of beach and ocean plastics.
The waste management company’s reprocessing and collection operations were strongly featured in the programme yesterday (23 April). Alongside a recycling message, viewers were shown material being recycled which, said Viridor, demonstrated “how the Circular Economy can work when the right stuff is put in the right bin”.
The beach plastic in front of The One Show studios at Broadcasting House in London – (more pictures below)
Viridor’s Logistics team transported the beach plastic from locations around the UK – from Cornwall to Aberdeen. The programme team reported on their visit to Viridor’s specialist plastics recycling facility at Rochester in Kent and its plastic reprocessing site at Skelmersdale in Lancashire to witness the beach plastic’s journey and the Circular Economy in action.
Last night’s footage showed The One Show’s Lucy Siegle visit Viridor’s Rochester plant to see the beach plastic sorted and baled. She commented: “It’s amazing that this was lying on the beach not that long ago, causing a hazard and now we are dealing with it.”
Viridor Rochester unit manager, Edward Sarasketa said: “That’s the message. If you put the material into the recycling, it gets recycled. It’s not on the beach.”
Viridor head of recycling assets (polymers & papers) Jez Blake showed Lucy how the plastic was sorted, cleaned and granulated at the company’s Skelmersdale plant where The One Show reporter asked why quality was so important. He said: “If we put it through these processes and take the time, there is absolutely no reason why this bottle can’t become another bottle.”
Fishing net
The project saw Surfers Against Sewage volunteers taking part in beach cleans to collect more than eight tonnes of beach plastic including fishing net, plastic bottles and commercial marine material. The fishing industry material found in the plastic was very evident on screen although this was not commented on in detail by the programme’s presenters.
Working with The One Show production staff, Viridor deposited the eight tonnes of plastic front of the programme’s studios at Broadcasting House in London on Monday, 16 April.
[gallery_placement]The beach plastic surrounded The One Show’s presenters Matt Baker and Alex Jones on the programmes famous green sofas. Joining them was Mr Blake and Lucy Siegle with naturalist Chris Packham and, representing the British Plastics Federation, Lubna Edwards. Michael Gove, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs joined the discussion from Westminster.
Viridor commented later that “Lucy Siegle outlined her ‘plastic plan’ which picked up many of the messages Viridor has consistently raised to increase recycling efforts. These include standardised local government collections, greater efforts towards reprocessing to achieve close loop recycling, innovation to ensure plastics were given a second life and a legislative framework which supported this.”
Mr Blake said that sophisticated facilities were required to sort and reprocess the large number of plastics currently in circulation and to reprocess them to ensure they were a sustainable and Circular Economy material. He said: “the most effective way to increase recycling is to put the right stuff in the right bin but simplifying the number of material in packaging products and their labelling would make it easier for people to do the right thing.”
Packaging
And, he noted that it was encouraging that over the past 18 months more than 70% of UK’s retailers and consumer brands had brought their packaging to Viridor’s Rochester Plastics Recycling Facility to test them for recyclability.
Talking about measures the Government was to introduce Mr Gove agreed the hundreds of local government recycling schemes were “sub-optimal” but said this was part of an effort to empower local government. He agreed they were confusing for the public and “wasteful”. He added: “Change has got to come.”
- The Viridor section of the programme, at 23:19 can be seen at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b05pfs/the-one-show-23042018
- The One Show (beach plastic special) on Monday, 16 April is at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09y1jcb/the-one-show-16042018
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
