VIDEO REPORT: Using energy derived from a waste to energy plant to serve the plastics recycling/reprocessing process is “long overdue”, according to Phil Piddington, managing director of Viridor.
Waste management and recycling business Viridor is increasingly adding materials reprocessing to its activities, with its main project now the development of a plastics reprocessing facility alongside its Avonmouth energy from waste plant. Both developments are due on stream this year and the company sees this as an advantage in terms of the circular economy benefits for the recycling process.
Speaking at the company’s recent Rubbish to Resource event for south west England and south Wales in Bristol, Mr Piddington made the link between the two facilities clear.
He said: “We are leveraging the low carbon link to recycle as much plastic as possible; one thing we don’t talk about is recycling is hugely energy intensive, so bringing together energy assets with recycling assets is long overdue.
“It’s not just about recycling – it’s about looking at things in a different way and being innovative. We have to look at redesign, smaller and more efficient bottles, thinner bottles where we can, more standardisation of things like HDPE, PET, polypropylene, LDPE films are infinitely recyclable either chemically or mechanically.”
At Avonmouth Viridor is spending £65 million on what it sees as a world-leading polymer recycling facility close to the energy plant with the company’s engineer travelling the world to look for the best design available, the audience heard.
Mr Piddington continued: “With PP and HDPE, we will minimise the carbon footprint and it makes sense to separate it when it comes in and then reprocessit back into pellets which you cannot really distinguished from virgin material. This can go back into a circular economy and will lead to less new material being required.”
And, the managing director explained the importance of energy from waste as providing baseload electricity. “Why are we putting it with energy recovery facility? – they are low carbon and much lower carbon than fossil fuels. It is baseload electricity. And while it is great to have lots of solar and lots of wind, when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, usually a really cold winters day, we want heat and we want electricity so we do need baseload electricity. So, energy from waste is a good solution as we transition to a totally renewable system for electricity in the future.”
‘Great awakening’
Earlier at the event, Countryfile presenter Tom Heap had set the scene, reflecting how he had come across plastics during his career. Mr Heap recalled the early days of beach collections and then referenced Blue Planet Two as “the great awakening”.
“Why? Because plastics are highly visible, highly motivating and a very effective social media developed around the programme,” he remarked.
And, Mr Heap made the point that the BBC “doesn’t do campaigns but then there is the programme “War on plastics” – if I was working at Ineos, would I be happy.”
He also said that he was hearing that “recycled content is worth more than virgin material” and how it could be best to use plastic bottles again and again, this even better than using refillable aluminium drinks bottles and glass bottles because of the overall environmental benefits.
[gallery_placement]Mr Heap also questioned whether “there could be a misleading bubble about how much the public care. I think the solutions are going to come from industry, designers and reailers. Plastics isn’t evil but letting it escape into the environment is.”
Enthusiasm
Tim Rotheray, innovation director, at Viridor closed the event saying that what had shone through for him was the “desire here in the room to solve the problem; this is a great reason for hope in that we are actually going to create a circular economy.”
Mr Rotheray continued: “Plastics are complex, I thought that what Tom Heap said, that we can’t be the joykillers, the people who say children can’t have balloons on their birthday is important. It is not fair for us to expect the consumer to solve the problem, it is bigger than anyone of us.
“Yes, at Viridor, we have an interest, we are building a massive plant which is going to take 81,000 tonnes of plastic and reprocess it but we are nothing without the regulators ensuring the regulation works, local authorities making sure the collections are right, the reprocessors and the manufacturers who are taking the product and are turning it into the new product, the fully recyclable trays and tins we heard about.”
“We have far more diversity of polymers and ways of packaging things than we need.”
Design
Professor Richard Thompson OBE, at Plymouth University’s marine biology department, spoke of the need for work on design saying “We have far more diversity of polymers and ways of packaging things than we need to actually deliver food and drink.
“I think that standardisation and harmonisation is absolutely critical here. The reason we have got that diversity is that it hasn’t been actually centre stage at the design stage to think about end of life. We need to reduce this diversity of different polymers and different ways of doing things to give more momentum to the circular economy.”
And he stressed how the public need to be given a simple approach to packaging and recycling. “It does need to be simple for the public – I would like to think I could go shopping and make my decisions as to what to buy on the thing that is in the packaging not the packaging that it is sitting in. We need to think about plastic packaging more at the design stage and take that burden off the consumer. They also need confidence what they put in the kerbside bin will be recycled.”
Products
The event also heard from Aida Cierco, sustainability manager at Klockner Pentaplast who explained how the company is working hard to use more recycled material in its products. Similarly Steve Owen, sustainable packaging manager at Walgreen Boots Alliance explained how the company was looking reduce the different types of plastics and the potential for recycled plastics usage against a background where products came under other influence such as marketing and safety.
Libbie Peake, head of resource, at the Green Alliance spoke of the role of a circular economy and also the importance of the connection between design and recycling.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
