Turkey has announced a ban on almost all UK plastic waste imports.

 

 

A message from our friends at Greenpeace, for more information and what more people like us can do, visit the website!

Finally, the government is showing real leadership to protect people, wildlife and our oceans. Unfortunately it’s not the UK government - it’s the Turkish government. Turkey has announced a ban on almost all UK plastic waste imports. [1] That’s incredible news!

 

While it’s great that Turkey is acknowledging the problem with plastic, we can’t let the UK government just find another country to exploit and dump our waste onto instead. The government must take responsibility for our waste and fix the plastic crisis by stopping waste exports to all countries and reducing the amount of plastic that is produced.

 

Plastic is all over the news right now, can you help pile the pressure on Boris and tell him to stop dumping our waste on other countries and take proper plastic action? 

 

 

Last week, a Greenpeace investigation found British plastic recycling being dumped and burned in the open air in Turkey.  And we released Wasteminster (https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/wasteminster-downing-street-disaster/) a film that exposes government hypocrisy on plastic pollution. It’s been watched over 6 million times, with journalists and politicians sharing it. Just two days later, Turkey announced a ban on 95% of UK plastic waste imports. But the UK government, who call themselves plastic leaders, are still silent. Below is a report about the film from Greenpeace.

 

This is a huge milestone in the fight against plastic pollution - but there’s still more to do. Nearly 40% of our recycling goes to Turkey. The government can’t just find more countries to dump that on. First China said no to our waste, now Turkey, where’s next?  The government must take responsibility for our waste, and not expect another country to deal with it for us. 

 

The government has announced a few things like a ban on plastic stirrers, cotton buds and straws and increasing the charge on single-use carrier bags. But these measures won’t stop the plastic crisis. As the UK is the second biggest producer of plastic waste per person in the world, behind the USA,  what the government needs to do is introduce targets to cut single-use plastic by 50% by 2025.  Thanks to your pressure, supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and then Aldi have already done this, so the government should too.

 

One great way to deal with our plastic crisis would be to finally introduce a deposit return scheme (DRS) - when you buy a drink you pay a tiny bit extra, which you get back when you return the container. It’s so effective, some countries with DRS have seen up to 95% recycling rates! The government announced one in 2017, but since then has delayed and tried to water down any potential scheme, making it less effective.

 

To tackle the plastic crisis the government must be the leader it claims it is. It must stop dumping our waste on other countries, and introduce proper measures to reduce plastic waste and improve recycling - like a DRS and plastic reduction targets. Can you make sure Boris Johnson knows people want him to be a plastic leader, and message him on social media?

 

We’ve already made an impact. Thanks to people like you, Turkey has stopped importing almost all of our plastic waste. The UK government has to deal with that now, and with the huge public support and outrage that’s been shown in the past week - we can make them take responsibility. Make sure you use your voice.

P.S. The government currently has a consultation open for Deposit Return Schemes - they’re trying to water it down, again. 

 

The UK is the 2nd biggest producer of plastic waste per person in the world, behind the USA. And because we’re producing so much plastic, the government is dumping it on other countries who can’t cope with it either. 

It’s hard to get your head around the true scale of the plastic problem, so we worked with the talented animators at Park Village Studios to show what it would look like piled up on Boris Johnson’s doorstep.

he UK is the 2nd biggest producer of plastic waste per person in the world, behind the USA. And because we’re producing so much plastic, the government is dumping it on other countries who can’t cope with it either. 

It’s hard to get your head around the true scale of the plastic problem, so we worked with the talented animators at Park Village Studios to show what it would look like piled up on Boris Johnson’s doorstep.

What you see in the film is the amount of plastic we dump on other countries every single day. That’s on average, 1.8 million kilograms a day – or 688,000 tonnes a year of our plastic waste that is fuelling health and wildlife emergencies around the world. Plastic kills hundreds of thousands of marine birds, sea mammals and turtles every year – but it’s not just harming wildlife and our oceans, it’s harming people too.

Plastic being sent overseas is being dumped or burned in the open air, with local communities in Turkey and Malaysia reporting serious health problems, like respiratory issues, nosebleeds and headaches. We have all lived through a health emergency over the past year in the form of Covid-19. But by dumping our plastic waste on other countries, the government has been fuelling another health emergency for even longer.

Time to take responsibility

It’s illegal for the government to send plastic waste to countries if it’s not going to be recycled. But a new Greenpeace investigation has found more evidence of plastic waste being dumped in Turkey.  Turkey receives over a third (38%) of all of our plastic waste exports. The government must take responsibility. 

The government wants to be seen as a leader in tackling plastic pollution, and every line in the film is an actual quote from Boris Johnson and Michael Gove (brilliantly voiced by Matt Forde and Jon Culshaw). And although they’ve announced positive yet very small steps to reduce the UK’s plastic production, they must take proper action to reduce our plastic pollution – and stop dumping our plastic waste on other countries.

If we all join together and work on this now to decrease the amount of plastic produced then we have a chance, if we just carry on like this the planet will not recover.  I cannot see what people do not get about it.

The blog song for today is: " Moby Dick" by Led Zeppelin 

TTFN