All wrapped up….

English: A McVitie’s chocolate digestive biscuit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is almost impossible these days to buy unwrapped plastic free biscuit unless you live in Huddersfield where you can buy them loose.

But if you don’t, what to do? Give up biscuits…..hmmmmm.

OK, it’s not a great solution, but  Mc Vities have started a biscuit wrapper recycling scheme. You save up the wrappers and post them off (for free with pre paid labels) and they get recycled. Its better then binning them. In their own words

“McVitie’s has recently teamed up with recycling experts TerraCycle to launch the McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Brigade. Biscuit wrappers are recyclable, but very little mixed plastic recycling is carried out by local council kerb side collections, resulting in millions of biscuit wrappers being sent to landfill. McVitie’s and TerraCycle’s initiative – a first for the industry – encourages consumers to help end this enormous waste of resources by sending in their used biscuit wrappers to be recycled. For more information, visit www.terracycle.co.uk.”

Please note, you need to send shipments that weigh at least 0.12 kg -approximately 50 units of biscuit wrappers.

So if you can’t refuse, at least you can recycle…. more tea vicar?

You can find other biscuit related posts here.

How To Boycott Plastic

Find plastic-free products with the

Plastic-free Resource Index

Read up about plastic & the boycott here

Recycling Plastic

There are two ways to recycle plastics;

Mechanical Recycling

Mechanical recycling, very simply, consists of melting down the old plastic and using it to make new products

Mechanical recycling can only be done a few times before the polymers break down and the quality of the plastic degrades. So, unlike glass for instance, you cannot necessarily use mechanically recycled polymers to remake the same product. You have to use them to make something different. The chain of recycling might go as follows

Virgin PET bottle to fleece or carpet

Carpet fibers to plastic lumber.

Plastic lumber to waste disposal plant – though manufacturers claim that plastic lumber can be recycled again.

This process is sometimes called DOWNCYCLING.

Sadly it is not quite as easy as that. There are hundreds of kinds of plastic – some easy to recycle, others not (plastic film for example ). Consequently is not cost effective to recycle all plastics. While it is theoretically possible to recycle nearly all plastics only a few of the simpler plastics actually are.

Find out more about mechanical plastic recycling here.

Chemical Recycling

The second way to recycle plastics, is chemically.

Here plastics are actually dissolved back into their original chemical components. These are then cleaned up and reused to make new plastics which, it is claimed, are as good as the original. At present it is a limited, expensive and problematic solution and can’t be applied to all plastics. Even so, it is already being employed by some companies.

Patagonia, for example, are using it in their Capalene base layer and fleeces. You can wear them them and then recycle these articles of clothing through their recycling program. It’s a very interesting scheme – read more about it here.

More information

There are many other ways to recycle and reuse waste plastic, from arty (make your own lampshade) to the very strange.

Boycott Plastic

Recycling is only part of the answer – a small part.  Our favourite solution is to REFUSE plastics.

Check these plastic-free products. Use them then compost them.

Local plastic recycling

Recycling plastic waste in Yorkshire are …

Based in Bradfod these guys want to recycle your plastic waste check them out

polythene recycling

Just to remind you, polythene is a simple plastic. It can be easily recycled any number of times – some say indefinitely.

You can tell it by its strechy feel.

It is used to make bread bags,veg sacks, toilet paper wrappings and carrier bags.

All  polythene bags can be recycled through the supermarket carrier bag recycling schemes. Sainsburys even print this fact on their packaging – I saw it on their grapes the other day.

If you don’t live near a supermarket (!) with a recycling scheme, then you can send the bags to this company who run a recycling scheme.

Better still give up polythene with this the  A-Z plastic free index

How to re-use plastic

Once your vile fizzy drink has been drunk then what to do with the plastic bottle? Landfill? Incinerate?

This post deals with the more productive ways to deal with our plastic waste.

Recycling

Here plastic trash is remade into a new product. To find out how, visit the recycling plastic page

Reused

This is when the original product is reused in a different way, but on a large scale. Like shredding trainers down into playing field surfacing.

Yes, really!

You can find some great ideas over here at You made what out of plastic trash?

Recrafted

Same as above but can be done by you at home or by artists in garrets. Have a look at what these talented folk have done over in the arty crafty part of this blog

Check out my PINTEREST board for more funky ideas. The people over there are so clever aren’t they?

Boycott Plastic

Recycling is only part of the answer – a small part. Our favourite solution is to REFUSE plastics. Check these plastic-free products. Use them then compost them.

I used to be a yogurt pot …

One of the most innovative plastic recycling companies I have come across is Smileplastics who make the most wonderful plastic sheeting out of old wellies, cds, banknotes and everything else.

These are not just recycled plastics but works of art with the main ingredient determining how the end product looks. the children’s rubber welly sheet is large blobs of colour and , well, rubbery. The banknote features shredded banknote in clear plastic for the rolling in millions feel

 

The plastic sheets can be used for anything from furniture to work surfaces.

To see more check out their website

Lumber from recycled plastic

Some uses for recycled plastic – see British Recycled Plastics for more products

Down at the plastic recycling plant

Those of you who read my uber post may think I am anti plastic recycling – not at all. Infact only the other day I was down at the plastic recycling plant, Home of Lynwood Plastics, in Halifax for a visit.

Here they recycle plastic into amongst other things
buckets
paint trays
grasscrete (mesh to grow reinforced grass in)
plastic lumber (plastic planks that can be used in place of wood)

The plastic for recycling is mixed according to type. The number found on some plastic products indicates what kind of plastic it is.

Up to 5% of the mix can be unknown plastic

The plastic for recycling goes into a big grinding machine where it is broken down into plastic grains.

The grains are melted and the resulting black plastic goo is poured into moulds or formed into products.

The goo smells quite plasticky but not unduly so. The machine is closed but not sealed – you can open the door and look at the goo glooping into the mould.

They can pretty much recycle any kind of plastic – from wrappers to traffic cones – as long as they know what kind of plastic it is.

The plastic needs to be fairly clean but not completely so – they can recycle empty paint cans with dried paint inside or plant pots with dust in.

They get their plastic for recycling from businesses. It is not domestic waste.

However they could recycle food wrappers and yogurt pots if they were cleaned before hand. They don’t want festering food waste on the premises for obvious reasons.

Plastic can be recycled pretty much indefinitely.

Polystyrene can be compressed and recycled

It takes a lot of plastic wrappers to make one plank.

Black plastic products with a kind of marbled finish are recycled.

To find out what plastics they recycle click here