Veolia has said that plastic recycling should be made mandatory in order to reduce CO2 emissions.
Its senior executive vice president northern Europe zone Gavin Graveson made the call as part of a statement in response to the current COP26 meeting in Glasgow.
He said: “We simply cannot ignore the carbon impact that plastic has on the planet. If we are to make a real difference to delivering the UK’s net zero commitments, it’s time to mandate recycling ALL plastics and stop it from entering our black bag waste.
“At the end of the day plastics are made from fossil fuel, but they can be made from recycled plastic! If all plastics were recycled we can save annually up to 150 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to stopping up to 40 coal fired power stations. We have the solutions to hand, we just need to incentivise more UK infrastructure investment and jobs by bringing more plastics into the recycling stream.
“It’s time for us to end our reliance on virgin materials to make our consumer goods and create recycled feedstock for UK manufacturers – let’s remove plastic from our waste, boost recycling and the green circular economy to protect the planet.”
In addition, he called for:
- The Resources and Waste strategy must be delivered to help the UK increase its recycling rates, incentivise sustainable product design, support consumers to recycle more and create markets for recycled plastic
- Enforce the groundbreaking Plastic Packaging Tax launching in April 2022 and scale this up over time
In turn Veolia will invest in new and existing recycling infrastructure to collect and recycle more plastics and support the levelling up agenda.
It will also continue to innovate in partnership with others including local authorities to find new and better solutions to treat our plastic waste such as better sorting and chemical recycling.
