The recycling regime is a mess in the UK—but what's stopping Britain from making all of its plastic waste recyclable and ensuring it is actually recycled?

Public engagement has played a big part in tackling plastic waste in the environment. Reaction to scenes in Blue Planet 2 where marine wildlife struggled with plastic in the ocean prompted government action. The recent ban on microbeads in cosmetics and the 5p charge for plastic bags are positive steps, but these gestures are just a start.

Supermarkets have promised in a "Plastic Pact" to eliminate avoidable packaging and ensure all of it can be reused, recycled or composted by 2025. One third of supermarket plastic cannot easily be recycled at present, and while the pact among retailers is only voluntary, its target is welcome. That said, just because a plastic is recyclable does not guarantee that it will be recycled. Local kerbside collections vary from place to place and many authorities only accept limited types.

There is a huge range of different types of plastic used in disposable products and packaging. One solution is to limit the types of plastic to a single standard which is easy to recycle. This might mean fewer coloured plastics. Black food trays are a particularly troublesome example as they contain pigments that make packaging harder to detect by sorting technology.

Mixed materials are those that have different types of material in the same product. For instance, a plastic bag with a foil lining or a disposable coffee cup made of paper with a plastic lining. These are especially difficult and expensive to separate. They are considered in many cases contaminated and worthless.

Designing packaging so that it's easier to separate is vital. Some consultancies offer advice to companies on how to achieve this, for instance, by having outer layers that are removable by the consumer and using water-soluble glues. This design-for-disposal approach would mean that food-grade plastic streams – materials which are safe to use in direct contact with food – are easier to identify and separate, increasing their availability and making them worth more as a material to put back into the cycle.

The raw feedstocks for most plastics are fossil fuels, which are cheaper to use than recycled material. Plant-based feedstocks are a good lower-carbon alternative but are often in competition with crops used to produce energy or food and are not always as sustainable as they might appear. This is where government intervention can have a big impact. A levy on making new single-use plastic rather than using recycled material would create a level playing field and raise funds to subsidise the development of new, cleaner materials.

Could we just get rid of all plastic packaging? Sadly, no. Some of it is considered unavoidable. Plastic prolongs the life of produce. It provides a barrier to bacteria, a film to lock in protective gas and a convenient waterproof layer. It would be difficult to imagine buying products like raw fish without it.

But there are solutions – consumers can take their own reusable containers to shops, and retailers can use more recycled (and recyclable) materials. 2025 is a long way off when plastics are in food chains now. Eliminating single-use materials is possible but it's going to involve us all in the solution.

Businesses are talking about the issue but the public could be forgiven for impatience over the lack of choice and commitment. They need to innovate. The government, meanwhile, has made some positive changes but these have been easy wins so far. They need to provide funding and legislation which supports alternatives to single-use plastics. Consumers also need to be prepared for a little inconvenience. Plastics are not a disposable commodity, they last hundreds of years in our environment and until now their true lifecycle cost has not been reflected in the price at the till.</s>Chile becomes first Latin America country to ban commercial use of plastic bags

Chile becomes first Latin America country to ban commercial use of plastic bags

Chile has joined a growing number of countries to ban the commercial use of plastic bags.

It became the first country in Latin America to enact the new law on Friday.

"I want to share with you the joy that as of today we're enacting the law," said President Sebastian Pinera at a public ceremony in Santiago.

He later handed out cloth bags to passers-by.

It comes after Mumbai became the largest Indian city to ban single-use plastics in June.

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Residents in the Indian city caught using plastic bags, cups or bottle could face penalties of up to 25,000 rupees (£250) and three months in jail.

Image: A seagull covered by a plastic bag at Caleta Portales beach in Valparaiso, Chile

In Chile, large businesses have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags.

Smaller ones will be given two years to adapt to the new rules.

It means that any form of plastic bag other than those constituting primary packaging "necessary for hygiene or to prevent food wastage" are prohibited.

Those who disobey the new law will be subject to a 370 peso (44p) fine in a country where $800 (96p) is the minimum wage.

"Without a doubt we're taking a giant step towards a cleaner Chile," added Mr Pinera.

Companies will be limited to handing out a maximum of two plastic bags per transaction in the meantime.

Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Australia and the UK are some of the other countries to ban plastic bags.

From August last year, anyone in Kenya found using, producing, or selling plastic bags could face four years in jail.

:: Sky's Ocean Rescue campaign encourages people to reduce their single-use plastics. You can find out more about the campaign and how to get involved at www.skyoceanrescue.com</s>The UK produced 11m tonnes of plastic waste in 2017, and recycled around two thirds of it. Or so it seemed. A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) shows that over half of the UK’s recyclable waste is sent overseas for recycling, but much of it is likely to end up in landfill or the ocean instead.

The recycling regime is a mess in the UK - but what’s stopping Britain from making all of its plastic waste recyclable and ensuring it is actually recycled?

Public engagement has played a big part in tackling plastic waste in the environment. Reaction to scenes in Blue Planet 2 where marine wildlife struggled with plastic in the ocean prompted government action. The recent ban on microbeads in cosmetics and the 5p charge for plastic bags are positive steps, but these gestures are just a start.

Supermarkets have promised in a “Plastic Pact” to eliminate avoidable packaging and ensure all of it can be reused, recycled or composted by 2025. One third of supermarket plastic cannot easily be recycled at present, and while the pact among retailers is only voluntary, its target is welcome. That said, just because a plastic is recyclable does not guarantee that it will be recycled. Local kerbside collections vary from place to place and many authorities only accept limited types.

There is a huge range of different types of plastic used in disposable products and packaging. One solution is to limit the types of plastic to a single standard which is easy to recycle. This might mean fewer coloured plastics. Black food trays are a particularly troublesome example as they contain pigments that make packaging harder to detect by sorting technology.

Mixed materials are those that have different types of material in the same product. For instance, a plastic bag with a foil lining or a disposable coffee cup made of paper with a plastic lining. These are especially difficult and expensive to separate. They are considered in many cases contaminated and worthless.

Designing packaging so that it’s easier to separate is vital. Some consultancies offer advice to companies on how to achieve this, for instance, by having outer layers that are removable by the consumer and using water-soluble glues. This design-for-disposal approach would mean that food-grade plastic streams – materials which are safe to use in direct contact with food – are easier to identify and separate, increasing their availability and making them worth more as a material to put back into the cycle.

The raw feedstocks for most plastics are fossil fuels, which are cheaper to use than recycled material. Plant-based feedstocks are a good lower-carbon alternative but are often in competition with crops used to produce energy or food and are not always as sustainable as they might appear. This is where government intervention can have a big impact. A levy on making new single-use plastic rather than using recycled material would create a level playing field and raise funds to subsidise the development of new, cleaner materials.

Could we just get rid of all plastic packaging? Sadly, no. Some of it is considered unavoidable. Plastic prolongs the life of produce. It provides a barrier to bacteria, a film to lock in protective gas and a convenient waterproof layer. It would be difficult to imagine buying products like raw fish without it.

But there are solutions – consumers can take their own reusable containers to shops, and retailers can use more recycled (and recyclable) materials. 2025 is a long way off when plastics are in food chains now. Eliminating single-use materials is possible but it’s going to involve us all in the solution.

Businesses are talking about the issue but the public could be forgiven for impatience over the lack of choice and commitment. They need to innovate. The government, meanwhile, has made some positive changes but these have been easy wins so far. They need to provide funding and legislation which supports alternatives to single-use plastics. Consumers also need to be prepared for a little inconvenience. Plastics are not a disposable commodity, they last hundreds of years in our environment and until now their true lifecycle cost has not been reflected in the price at the till.</s>A movement to ban plastic bags that harm fish and other wildlife in Long Island Sound is slowly gaining traction along Connecticut’s shoreline.

Towns from the New York border to Stonington are considering bans on plastic bags — the type grocery stores and other retailers hand out daily, as well as plastic straws and other products. But so far, only Greenwich and Westport have banned plastic bags.

Similar bans are being considered in Stamford, Norwalk, Newtown, Waterford and Mansfield, to name a few.

“It’s become common in the ecosystem,” said Bill Lucey, the Long Island Soundkeeper, referring to plastic bags and other products.

“It’s coming into the Sound from the shoreline and from rivers,” Lucey said. “This stuff can last for a 100 years.”

The Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport recently banned banned plastic straws and is now using only biodegradable food containers.

"Single-use plastics are a source of land and sea pollution that cause the death of birds, marine mammals and sea turtles," said Gregg Dancho, the zoo director. "We’re proud of the first steps we’ve taken to be part of the solution."

In Massachusetts, 81 cities and towns have regulated plastic bags, either imposing a five or 10 cent fee per bag or banning them outright.

Lucey has seen the volume of plastic in Long Island Sound first hand. He said boats towing a special net routinely pull up shellfish with plastic microfibers inside them.

Activists say plastic, whether in the form of a bag, bottle, straw or microfiber that slips through sewage treatment plants, causes severe damage to animals such as clams, fish, birds, turtles and seals.

“Plastic bags are ingested by sea turtles; it gets stuck in their stomach,” Lucey said. “A fin whale in the Mediterranean Sea that recently died had 50 pounds of plastic in its stomach.”

Lucey noted dozens of species in Long Island Sound are threatened.

“There is a whole range of impacts, from big animals to micro feeders,” Lucey said.

“We are working to define the problem and find solutions,” Lucey added. “You can bring your own shopping bag to the store. There are technologies that can be put in sewer plants. Another solution is banning bags and straws.”

A bill before the legislature last year sought to slap a five cent fee on plastic bags to discourage use. The legislation moved out of one committee but was not put up for a vote in the Senate or House.

The National Park Service estimates that Americans throw away 500 million single use plastic straws every day — enough to fill 46,444 school buses.

The United Nations says 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the oceans each year.

The Citizens Campaign for the Environment said a plastic bag is used for an average of only 12 minutes but can remain in oceans, landfills, parks and on beaches for thousands of years.

Robert Burg with the Long Island Sound Study, an arm of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said the volume of plastic in the Sound is startling.

“We do cleanups along Long Island Sound and last year in one day we took 18,000 pounds of debris off the shore,” Burg said.

“The top items collected were cigarette butts, which have plastic in them, plastic stirrers, straws and grocery bags,” Burg said.

“Clearly the evidence exists that plastic is being found on the shore, and its coming from the shoreline as opposed to ocean currents,” Burg added.

The Connecticut River, which winds throughout New England, is also a major source of plastic, along with other rivers that enter the Sound, Burg said.

The Long Island Sound Study has begun a public awareness campaign to alert people to the growing problem of plastic.

“The campaign is focusing on not using single use material and to use reusable,” Burg said.

Both Lucey and Burg said it’s not known how much plastic is in the Sound and along it’s shores, although studies are under way to find out.

“We really have no feel for the volume,” Lucey said. “The EPA does not have a protocol. But a lot of people are looking at it.”

Lucey said the solution comes down to a choice between the convenience of plastic bags and the effort involved in bringing a reusable bag to a grocery store.

“People have to determine what the value is to have clean water,” Lucey said.</s>SANTIAGO – Chile has become the first South American country to legally ban the widespread commercial use of plastic bags.

“I want to share with you the joy that as of today we’re enacting the law,” said President Sebastian Pinera at a public ceremony in the centre of Santiago on Friday, after which he handed out cloth bags to passers-by.

Any form of plastic bags other than those constituting primary packaging “necessary for hygiene or to prevent food wastage” is prohibited.

Large businesses have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags, while smaller ones will be given two years to adapt to the new rules.

Those flouting the ban will be subject to a $370 fine, in a country where the minimum wage is just $800.

In the meantime the shops will only be allowed to hand out two carrier bags per customer.

“Without a doubt we’re taking a giant step towards a cleaner Chile,” added Pinera. “We want to go from a throwaway culture, where everything is used and chucked away, to the healthy culture of recycling.

“There are 7.6billion inhabitants in the world. We can’t continue polluting as if each one of us owned the Earth.”

The legislation was proposed by his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, who banned the use of plastic bags in Chile’s Patagonia region.

According to data provided by the Association of Plastic Manufacturers (Asiplas in Spanish), it takes a minute to produce one plastic bag, which has, on average, a fifteen-to-thirty-minute lifespan. Nonetheless, each bag takes approximately 400 years to degrade.

Chile uses more than 3.4 billon plastic bags a year, which translates to almost 200 bags per person annually.

Several other countries have also been taking steps to combat plastic pollution.

In January, Panama approved legislation curbing the commercial use of plastic bags. Businesses there were given up to 24 months to phase out the use of plastic carrier bags.

In England, a 5p compulsory charge per bag was introduced in 2015.

Some states and cities of the U.S. and Canada have similar measures in place, but those initiatives have not become national policies yet. Costa Rica, on the other hand, intends to ban single-use plastics by 2021.</s>, Santiago, Chile, Aug 3 – Chile made history on Friday when it became the first country in South America to ban the commercial use of plastic bags.

“I want to share with you the joy that as of today we’re enacting the law,” said President Sebastian Pinera at a public ceremony in the centre of Santiago, after which he handed out cloth bags to passers-by.

Large businesses have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags, while smaller ones will be given two years to adopt the new rules.

It means that any form of plastic bag other than those constituting primary packaging “necessary for hygiene or to prevent food wastage” are prohibited, the government gazette Diario Oficial said on Friday.

Those flouting the ban will be subject to a $370 fine, in a country where the minimum wage is just $800.

In the meantime, companies will be limited to handing out a maximum of two plastic bags per transaction.

The law was passed on June 1 but appealed by the Association of Industrial Plastics, whose objections were rejected by the constitutional court.

Chile has been one of the countries leading the way in Latin America against the use of plastic bags.

In 2014 the government of Michelle Bachelet banned them in Chilean Patagonia and last year extended that to coastal areas.

Chile’s problem has reached epic proportions with 3.2 billion plastic bags used every year — some 200 per person, according to the government.

“A plastic bag takes seconds to make, is used for less than half an hour between the supermarket and the home, and then takes 400 years to biodegrade,” said Pinera.

Some 90 percent of them end up in landfill sites or the sea, where they can be swallowed by birds or fish.

The toxic impact of these polyethylene bags on oceans was highlighted recently in Thailand by the death of a whale that had swallowed more than 80 plastic bags.

“We cannot continue like this,” said Pinera, adding that “nature is suffering the effect of plastic bags.”

On top of that, only four percent of Chile’s 17.5 million people recycle.

“What we want to do is very simple: we want to change Chileans’ way of life,” said Pinera.

Latin America and the Caribbean are particularly vulnerable to this environmental disaster as the region enjoys one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world.

According to the UN, it has 16 million square kilometers (6.1 million square miles) of sea comprising almost a quarter of the world’s fish population.

The Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda were the first country in the region to ban plastic bags in 2016. That same year Colombia prohibited the use of small bags before also placing a tax on the use of bigger ones a year later.

Ecuador has moved to restrict the use of plastic bags, straws and bottles around the biosphere reserve of the Galapagos Islands, which are a World Heritage Site.

Panama was the first country in Central America to announce a complete ban on plastic bags in January, but it has given businesses up to two years to comply to the new directives.

The three biggest cities in Latin America have also taken action, with Mexico City banning the distribution of free bags in 2009. Sao Paulo followed suit in 2015 while Buenos Aires went a step further in January 2017, putting a stop to supermarkets either using or selling such bags.

Public and government awareness about the environmental impact of plastics has been increasing. Last year the United Nations passed a resolution, albeit non-binding, to prevent plastics from entering the oceans.</s>SANTIAGO: Chile made history on Friday when it became the first country in Latin America to ban the commercial use of plastic bags.

"I want to share with you the joy that as of today we´re enacting the law," said President Sebastian Pinera at a public ceremony in the centre of Santiago, after which he handed out cloth bags to passers-by.

Large businesses have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags, while smaller ones will be given two years to adapt to the new rules.

It means that any form of plastic bag other than those constituting primary packaging "necessary for hygiene or to prevent food wastage" are prohibited, the government gazette Diario Oficial said on Friday.

Those flouting the ban will be subject to a $370 fine, in a country where the minimum wage is just $800.

In the meantime, companies will be limited to handing out a maximum of two plastic bags per transaction.</s>SANTIAGO: Chile made history on Friday when it became the first country in Latin America to ban the commercial use of plastic bags. “I want to share with you the joy that as of today we’re enacting the law,” said President Sebastian Pinera at a public ceremony in the centre of Santiago, after which he handed out cloth bags to passers-by. Large businesses have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags, while smaller ones will be given two years to adapt to the new rules. It means that any form of plastic bag other than those constituting primary packaging “necessary for hygiene or to prevent food wastage” are prohibited, the government gazette Diario Oficial said on Friday.</s>Chile has become the first South American country to legally ban the widespread commercial use of plastic bags.

The new legislation, approved by Congress and enacted by President Sebastián Piñera, gives small shops two years to adapt to a total ban.

Larger business will have six months to stop using plastic bags.

In the meantime they will only be allowed to hand out two carrier bags per customer.

Businesses that break the rules will face a $370 (£280).
• The breath-taking alien world of plastic bags under the sea

Scientists say plastic pollution has a devastating impact on marine wildlife and affects the health of humans.

Mr Piñera said the new rules were a great step for a cleaner Chile.

"We want to go from a throwaway culture, where everything is used and chucked away, to the healthy culture of recycling," he said.

"There are 7.6 billion inhabitants in the world. We can't continue polluting as if each one of us owned the Earth."

He handed out reusable cloth bags at a ceremony marking the ban on Friday.

The legislation was proposed by his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, who banned the use of plastic bags in Chile's Patagonia region.

Several other countries have also been taking steps to combat plastic pollution.

In January, Panama approved legislation curbing the commercial use of plastic bags.

Businesses there were given up to 24 months to phase out the use of plastic carrier bags.

In Britain, a 5p compulsory charge per bag was introduced in 2015.</s>TROY, N.Y. >> Members of the Rensselaer County Legislature’s Democratic Minority Group said they are submitting a resolution urging the New York State Legislature to ban single-use plastic bags.

According to a news release from the Democratic legislators, people in the United States of America use nearly 100 billion bags a year; New York State alone uses 23 billion.

“The high consumption of plastic bags within New York is having a tremendous cost on our environment as well as our health. Plastic bags never breakdown, they only break into smaller pieces that contain toxic chemicals,” said Minority Leader Peter Grimm in the release.

“We are putting future generations at risk with our current production and consumption of plastic bags,” added Deputy Minority Leader Cindy Doran. “A statewide ban on single-use plastic bags will greatly decrease our usage of plastic that ultimately would have positive effects on the environment and public health.”

The Democratic legislators said that the public is urged to attend the public forum Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the legislative chambers, where they may voice their opinion on this and any other issues they may be concerned about.

The resolution could then be voted on at the legislature’s next monthly meeting on Aug. 14.
Chile becomes the first Latin American country to ban the commercial use of single-use plastic bags.