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Double or drop on plastic recycling
A campaign has been launched by the plastics industry challenging itself, government and consumers to step up recycling and stop sending plastic to landfill.
As part of the Plastics 2020 Challenge, the industry is pledging several commitments on the four R's - reduce, reuse, recycle and recover - including doubling the recycling rate of plastic packaging by the year 2020.
The campaign website is available to members of the public and interest groups to join the debate on the benefits, use and disposal of plastic products and packaging. Environmental campaigners, such as Friends of the Earth, will be encouraged to take part in regular web debates, on subjects such as marine littering and bio plastics.
Underpinning the Challenge is research by ComRes, which showed that almost a third of councillors do not expect to meet the government's targets for recycling, composting and energy recovery next year while a third did not know if they would meet the targets for 2015 and 2020. Almost a fifth of councillors reported a risk of council tax bills rising in 2020 because the target would not be met.
Calum Forsyth from the Plastics 2020 Challenge said: "There are plastics businesses in virtually every constituency in the land. The industry is worth £19bn to UK Plc and employs 186,000 people. Plastics have become indispensable and yet debate surrounding their use and disposal has become unhelpfully polarised. The challenge is to confront the issues surrounding this material, as time is running out options for its disposal."
