Tesco has introduced a take-back recycling program in the UK taking back the plastic bags and packaging with the promise of recycling them. But no one knows where the plastic actually ends up.
Using tracking devices to follow three different items on their recycling journey revealed what is happening to them. Making plastic someone’s else's problem is the motto of most companies here. Companies in richer nations export the plastic waste and basically pass the responsibility of dealing with the difficult-to-process waste onto poorer nations, which ultimately burdens their waste-disposal infrastructure and causes many other problems. For example, this plastic waste is burned, incinerated or dumped in landfills, all illegally and feasible due to lack of stricter regulations in these nations.
Ultimately, the entire recycling process is a mess that lacks transparency. Once the plastic waste leaves the UK, Tesco has no idea what is happening, and worse, it claims that the plastic waste is well taken care of and recycled. But in fact, only a small fraction of this plastic waste is recycled, and most is disposed of in other, but environmentally harmful ways.
Recycling has become a convenient catchphrase for companies to balance between the public’s desire to help the environment against the desire for cheap and convenient goods.
Source: Bloomberg Green