On 02/01/2018 09:41, alan_m wrote:
On 02/01/2018 09:11, Chris Hogg wrote:

AIUI, in the UK, plastic waste is either recycled, incinerated or sent
to landfill. How much of it actually ends up in the sea? I've no idea
but not much, I wouldn't think. So it seems to me that these campaigns
to reduce plastic packaging in the UK are typically misguided,
emotional, not thought through and probably 'green' ideas.

I was under the impression that the biggest problem was mixed packing
where a food may be placed in a plastic tray which can be recycled but
then a film which cannot be recycled is bonded to the tray thus
"contaminating" it. Cardboard boxes with unnecessary plastic see-through
windows is another example.

Reducing packaging on many products seems to me a sensible idea. I'm not
advocating banning the sensible use of suitable packaging but I've seen
food from on brand that is in 3 layers of packing whereas the equivalent
from another supplier is in 1 layer of packaging.

Is
a lot of it just dumped in the sea in the Far East, in which case
there is cause for concern,

There was a lot of concern about plastic micro-beads entering the food
chain but I now read that a bigger concern is the use of washing
machines. Washing synthetic materials in a washing machine results in
microscopic particles of the material being shed and being flushed down
the drain in the rinse cycle. These act in the same way as the now
banned micro-beads that were added to certain products (such as
toothpaste) and enter the food chain at the lowest level.



I used to tear off the plastic window from takeaway sandwiches so that
the paper/card could be recycled but now they seem to have switched
to a paper/card/polythene film laminate just like the Starbucks cups.

So can only be recycled in one place the in the UK.