The ideas that ‘plastics last for ever’ and ‘composting is a good thing’ have given rise to the notion that plastics should be made compostable. Composting removes putrefiable matter from organic waste, so that the plant nutrients and vegetable fibre are left as useful humus. The process can produce methane for fuel under controlled and confined conditions, but composting plastics should itself be regarded as wasteful.

Over the past 25 years companies have developed entirely biological, that is, renewable, plastics, but it has recently been shown that these hardly conserve resources. The other approach is to induce more rapid degradation in common plastics such as polyethylene. Companies such as Symphony and others have promoted polymers treated in this way as ‘green’ materials, but it is noteworthy that for at least seven or so years, Friends of the Earth has not endorsed them for the reason that they are difficult to reconcile with recycling. induced biodegradeability has some application in areas such as agricultural mulching films and controlled release fertiliser capsules. However, a case can be made out for banning their use for products that are liable to enter a waste stream destined for recycling. Any beneficial effect on waste management will be negligible.

Recycling or reprocessing is currently preferred because of legislative targets and the opportunities for new businesses, and because it has captured the imagination of a section of the public. Sheila McKinley, head of the DETR Packaging Unit, exhorted that recycling must rise 300% at a recent Recoup conference - i.e. in order to meet the targets.

However, in the face of difficult economics and very variable markets, viability problems have become only too obvious. A report from the Market Development Group sponsored by the DETR, examining the ways in which the markets for recycled goods and materials could be expanded, makes bleak reading, since all that can be proposed is a great deal more effort. Recycling of PET has been relatively successful, but this should not obscure the fact that most plastics recycling has to be subsidised. The fluctuating market position is the key factor that makes theoretical returns hard to realise. In October 1998 the recycling company Reprise put its suppliers on hold, due to the Asian economic crisis and world over-capacity. In April this year, Plastics and Rubber Weekly ran the headline, ‘Waste target gap threatens to grow’, reporting the failure of PCW recycler Transform Plastics. John Webb-Jenkins of the Institute of Packaging was quoted as saying ‘The whole system seems to be in disarray ... the time scale is incredibly short’, - that is, for the UK to meet European commitments.

Incineration with energy recovery, or ‘energy from waste’ (EFW) is discussed in “A way with waste” as another of the options. It is the one favoured most by the industry and least by the public. With the big drive towards recycling, the authorities have naturally shied away from promoting EFW, yet it has advantages. This is a field where plastics, paper and board can be combined, and the necessary separation procedures are much simpler than those for recycling. Added to which, there is no marketing problem.

There are concerns over toxic emissions, but account needs to be taken of the efficiency of modern incineration plant. Efficient, minimum-emission power plant capable of burning mixed waste is available and already being used in some areas, such as Tyseley in Birmingham. It is inevitable that more and more EFW installations will be built because there will always be a combustible residue requiring disposal. Capacity will have to be planned for future needs, and economics will favour larger installations and higher loading once built, so that the authorities concerned are likely to stop subsidising recycling at some stage and actually charge companies to abstract materials from the waste stream.

If this analysis is correct, then by virtue of normal and logical progress, most of the effort to find markets for various recyclates will become redundant, so that the only reason for pressing ahead in the short term will be the drive to meet the statutory recycling targets ‑ perhaps a forlorn quest anyway. Recycling targets result in an unnecessary cost to the whole population, and are a bar to rapid progress, since recycling investment will tend to delay power plant investment. It is, however, inevitable that these natural developments will eventually solve the problems long before there is any significant effect on the planet’s hydrocarbon resources from an industry that uses such a small proportion of them.