10Jan

Kerbside plastic recycling up

Posted on 10th January, 2011

The amount of plastic bottles collected from kerbside recycling has risen 27 per cent on previous years according to a survey carried out by Recoup and Nampak.

They found that 215,576 tonnes of plastic bottles were collected through kerbside recycling schemes in 2009. This represents a rise of 46,610 tonnes on the previous year’s figure. A total of 360 local authorities now offer plastic bottle collection through kerbside recycling to a total of 23.3 million households.

The collection rate for non-bottle plastic packaging has also increased: 35,442 tonnes of material were collected by kerbside collection in 2009, an increase of 78 per cent over the 2009 figure. The survey also found that 98 local authorities now provide a collection service for such materials, with 84 of those authorities collecting through kerbside.

In total, 303,412 tonnes of plastic packaging were collected from bring and kerbside schemes for recycling by local authorities in 2009.