What a waste!

Howard Waghorn, Chief Operating Officer, Iplas

Having worked in the plastics industry for many years, I have often wondered why plastic is viewed in such a negative way. Our highways agency are known as ‘plastic policemen’, ‘plastic people’ are phoney and disingenuous, and cars are rejected because of a ‘plasticy’ dashboard. So where did our extreme negativity towards plastics come from? Answer: the usual source of intolerance, anger and bigotry - a lack of understanding.

We often hear that plastics take ‘thousands of years to break down in landfill’. To solve this challenging problem you would have to ask an innocent five year old who would say: ‘Don’t put it in landfill then’.

Oh no...I forgot to put the bins out!

Paul Harris, Sales and Marketing Director, Iplas

We seem to have developed an unhealthy interest in our (and other people’s) bins in Britain, to rival our weather obsession. We all like to regale people from other local authority areas with stories of how many bins/boxes/containers we have and how infrequently we see the bin men.

Forgot To Put The Bins Out Video (Armstrong and Miller)

The larger party in the coalition made an election promise to empty bins once a week. There was an army of people this week, on both sides of the debate, either outraged that their waste isn’t being picked up as soon as they create it or incredulous that people don’t want to separate their waste into several hundred different streams that only need collection once a decade.

Recycling - getting the balance right

Grahame Hall, Chief Executive, Iplas

The Oxford English Dictionary defines recycling as ‘The processing of used material into new products’. It might therefore surprise you to know that over 80% of the plastics collected for ‘recycling’ in the UK are simply sorted by type, ground into small pieces, loaded into containers and sent to China or India where they are made into new products. So although, technically, they have been ‘recycled’, this process has taken place over two continents and 12,000 miles. Does this make any sense?

It certainly helps fuel UK PLC’s export drive and plays its part in reducing the trade deficit. Some would argue that it also reduces the amount of material going to landfill in the UK. But surely the whole purpose, and benefit, of recycling is to sort and use our own waste, not sell it to someone else to deal with?

Welcome to our blog

Grahame Hall, Chief Executive, Iplas

Welcome to the Iplas blog which we have launched to mark the start of a new phase in our development. As the UK’s leading manufacturer of high performance recycled plastic products, we have a responsibility to contribute to the debate about the key issues surrounding the recycling of plastic.

We relish this opportunity and will be posting comments on a range of topical issues to move the debate in a positive direction. In particular, we want to highlight the performance advantages that recycled plastic products made from Zyplex have over traditional materials and how they are rapidly becoming the sustainable building products of choice for the construction industry.

We'd like to hear what you think too so please contribute your views by posting a comment.