One of the main items in your household waste wheelie bins used may be plastic bags or film. This should now be a thing of the past.
Ideally, we should all try to buy items without plastic packaging, but some items need plastic packaging to preserve them or for hygienic reasons. Many supermarkets are reducing the use of single use plastic, and packaging, and some local stores, such as, Swains Farm shop use very little for fruit and veg.
We currently have 2 types of plastic bags:
- Plant-based biodegradable bags which should continue to go into your household waste bins, or into a compost bin/heap. eg some magazine wrappers or carrier bags.
- All other plastic bags that you can ‘scrunch’ in your hand – frozen fruit and veg packaging, dry cooking goods eg rice, dried fruit, coffee bags, granola and other plastic cereal packets, bubble wrap, cellophane bags, film lids, cling film, carrier bags, pet food pouches, etc, can now be recycled.
How has this change been made possible.
The Flexible Plastic Fund has been set up by Ecosurity.
5 large manufacturers: Nestles, Unilever, Mars UK, PepsiCo and Mondelez International have set up a £million fund to incentivise companies to recycle this plastic in the UK. Recycling companies receive £100 / ton for processing it ready to make into other plastic items.
If they then can prove that it has been made into other products, they receive £200 / ton if used in non-food packaging, and £300 / ton if used in food packaging.
So ‘scrunchable plastic is now seen as a valuable recycling resource.
This is the start of the ‘circular economy’ for soft plastic, so it doesn’t end up damaging our environment.
Video https://www.nestle.co.uk/en-gb/media/news/flexible-plastics-fund-launched-boost-uk-recycling
So please separate out all your plastic packaging from your other household rubbish and take it to one of your local stores:
Large stores: Tesco’s, Sainsburys, Waitrose. (others hope to come on board in 2022)
Co-op stores: locally these include: Partridge Green, Cowfold and Steyning.
Please note that scrunchable plastic recycling will continue in our shops in Henfield via the ‘Terracycle’ programme, as many residents say they don’t want to go out of the village, we want to encourage people to use our local shops, and it brings in much needed money for Henfield Haven.
