HOW TO MOTIVATE MORE PEOPLE TO RECYCLE PLASTIC PACKAGING AROUND EUROPE

Throughout all of the countries of Europe, recycling rates for plastic packaging vary from a high of 51% to a low of 10% with the average around 28% of all plastic packaging consumed. This means that 72% of more than 43 million tonnes is not recycle but rather is either burnt, buried or is lost into the environment. This result falls far short of the aspirations of EU policy and the claims of countries across Europe whose statements and determinations are searching for better results.

Changing this result is not only a question of capacity but moreover, it’s necessary to motivate Consumers to offer up this packaging material once it’s served its function which is more often than not, single use packaging. This sort of task is difficult as it includes changes to cultural and also to moral norms, defining the significant and sustained effort of recycling as a ‘civic duty’. Normal domestic ‘throwing away’ of garbage must become a matter of separating plastic packaging from the rest and sending it to a different bin which is collected on a different day - this means double the work for each household which is a difficult story to sell to everyone in the community. Motivating consumers on mass to undertake extra activity on a continuing basis is extremely difficult but a necessary change which has to be made across Europe if we are to curtail the degradation of our own living space and the wider environment - But how to do it?

To start with, empowering young people by delivering important information and to learn about plastics during studies at school; the role they play in our society; and, what they can do, would become a powerful driver for social change over time. It’s often the children within the family group who are given the job to ‘do the recycling’ or ‘take out the garbage bin’, so if their knowledge base includes: which sorts of plastics were recyclable; and, how they can be reused, would be an advantage to the collection of weekly household plastic waste instead of send it all to general waste as happens most often at present. The more packaging which is offered for recycling by consumers then the less goes to incineration. Millions of tonnes could be collected with simple changes driven by those people who are motivated to inherit a healthy society and a pollution-free world.

To this end, my project involves installing a mini plastic processing lab into each School in the form of a 3D printer equipped with an extruder and strip cutter. In the first instance, this will enable Students to turn PET bottles into useful objects through 3D printing. Latterly, this same apparatus can be used for the reuse of nearly any type of plastic packaging ensuring that each student can see and experience the recycling up close and real. The experience of this process, it will make it clear why recycling is necessary and how it actually works - education is key to change. Will it lead to an increase in household recycling? It must certainly help as much as anything else currently being tried in EU Policy.
In the short term, this process will amount to the recycling of significant tonnage of plastic from activity in every school but moreover, the change will come from each household which becomes aware and informed about each type of plastic and the how it should be offered for recycling. Eventually the result will inevitably develop the recycling habit leading to vastly increased tonnage to be offered up.

This process has to start urgently and it has to be effective – the sooner the better.
I’m looking for comments and participation to build such a programme in the regulatory sense and to support the innovation to create all of the elements of this programme.