Symphony Environmental has made the UK government an offer that it will accept for recycling all plastic shopping bags of any type collected in England for recycling – on the condition that bags made from oxo-biodegradable plastics would be exempted from the proposed levy on shopping bags in England.
Advanced plastics specialist Symphony say it is “confident” that oxo-biodegradable plastic bags can be safely recycled together with other oil-based plastics, and has presented DEFRA – the UK government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – with a report of scientific trials said to confirm this position.
Symphony reports that it is still waiting for a response from DEFRA.
A challenge to EuPC
At the same time, Symphony has also written to European Plastics Converters (EuPC), the EU-level trade body, questioning its recent statement that ‘oxo-bio’ plastic cannot be safely recycled with other oil-based plastics.
In a letter to Alexandre Dangis, managing director of EuPC in Brussels, on 23 September 2013, Symphony challenged EuPC to produce credible scientific evidence in support of its position on oxo-biodegradable plastic – for which, Symphony says, “no evidence has yet been given”.
Symphony has also offered to conduct trials with any EuPC member to confirm that they could safely include materials containing oxo-biodegradable technology into their existing plastic waste stream.
In its letter, Symphony added: “There is an abundance of independent evidence that oxo-biodegradable plastics can be successfully recycled in the conventional plastic waste stream, most recently the research carried out by Dr Roediger at Stellenbosch.
“Not only do scientific reports demonstrate that (EUPC’s) position is wrong, but all the oxo-biodegradable carrier bags collected by the Co-op and Tesco in the UK were seamlessly incorporated into the conventional plastic waste stream.”
The letter went on: “It is difficult to see how your position can benefit your members who are manufacturers of plastic products, as oxo-biodegradability offers them a defence against allegations that their products could lie or float around in the environment for many decades if not collected.
Symphony added that there is “nothing wrong with plastic, but it does need to be brought up to date”.
“We are also disturbed that EuPC insists on imitating the bio-based plastics industry by describing oxo-biodegradable plastic as ‘oxo-fragmentable’,” Symphony continued.
“If you understood the technology you would know that it does not just fragment, but converts at the end of its useful life in the presence of oxygen into a biodegradable material which is no longer a plastic.”
The company concluded: “If you do not understand the technology you should not be making statements about it.”
Symphony is a member of The British Plastics Federation (BPF), the Oxo-biodegradable Plastics Association (OPA), the Society for the Chemical Industry (UK), and the Pacific Basin Environmental Council.
