A Guide to Plastic Waste Disposal
As the climate change emergency gets more and more serious, commercial recycling becomes more and more important. Since plastic is arguably one of the most damaging materials used by businesses, and is used in huge volumes for things such as packaging, business owners have a responsibility to ensure that plastic recycling is done correctly and as efficiently as possible.
Almost every industry produces plastic waste, from shops, factories and laboratories, to office buildings, warehouses and schools.
Plastic waste can include the obvious such as water bottles, food packaging, motor oil containers, or polystyrene. However, it can also include things like pipes, tiles, cladding and more.
Hiring or buying a plastic baler can be a hugely effective way to improve your plastic recycling for larger organisations, whereas smaller companies will need to use correctly labelled recycling bins.
What is Commercial Plastic Disposal?
Commercial plastic disposal refers to the safe collection and disposal or recycling of any plastic waste produced by a business. As the UK’s leading commercial waste disposal company, phs Wastekit can:
● Visit your location to carry out a waste saving audit to identify your needs and reduce them where possible, taking this task out of team’s hands and allowing them to focus on growing your business
● Provide you with the appropriate bins, cleaning equipment or balers, making waste disposal simple and easy for your employees
● Hit your recycling targets - whether it is achieving your recycling quotas or staying on the right side of waste regulations, we provide an expert consultancy.
● Would you like to see how we help companies all over the UK to bring down their waste disposal costs? Just visit our case studies page.
● Ensure that all plastic disposal and recycling is done in the most sustainable way possible, giving you piece of mind
● Offer maintenance plans to keep your baling equipment at it’s best and reduce investment in the long term
What is Required Legally in Regards to Plastic Disposal?
There are many laws and regulations in place related to this topic. If we are managing your waste disposal services, you can rest assured that all tasks are carried out in line with all relevant regulations.
If you are handling this internally, the key regulations to be aware of are:
The Environmental Protection Act (1990) which enforces a duty of care on business owners to safely and securely dispose of all waste, which of course includes plastic
The EU Landfill directive which intends to reduce the amount of recyclable waste that is mistakenly sent to landfills each year.
There are also producer responsibility legislations which specify that businesses who manufacture, import, and sell those materials are responsible for how they are disposed of.
Can All Plastic be Recycled?
The vast majority of plastic waste can be recycled. However, some, such as certain plastic bags and polystyrene, cannot. In most cases, they can be repurposed - for example, polystyrene can be reused for packaging and plastic bags can be reused over and over again for different purposes.
Why is Plastic Recycling the Most Urgent Form of Recycling?
The negative effects of plastic use on the planet cannot be overstated. The average plastic drink bottle takes 450 years to decompose, and most tougher forms of plastic take thousands of years.
With 391 million tons of plastic waste created globally every year (15 million in the UK), the slow decomposition of all plastic products means the volume of plastic waste in the world is growing at a dramatic rate. The situation is made worse by the fact that the total global plastic waste production is expected to double within the next decade.
This means over 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean every year - 100% of baby sea turtles have some form of plastic in their stomachs.
Plastic production is also one of the most environmentally damaging processes there are, with that industry alone releasing 850 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
As a result, a dramatic reduction in plastic production facilitated by biodegradable substitutes, combined with a huge effort to recycle existing plastic products, is the only way to prevent a longer term global catastrophe.
How can phs Wastekit Help?
phs Wastekit has over 35 years experience supplying the best compactors, balers and waste handling products.
Our parent company phs is also the UK’s leading provider of waste disposal services.
With all of this experience improving waste disposal processes for large companies, schools, office buildings, hospitals and government buildings across the UK, we are able to offer solutions to help manage any volume of waste.
From our headquarters in Birmingham, we are perfectly placed to service clients throughout the UK. With our network of fully qualified and multi-skilled engineers on your side, you can ensure that your waste strategy is driving down your costs while enhancing your operations.
To learn more about our baler range or discuss how we can help you, get in contact now!