Stop plastic bags!

National facts

• 9 billion plastic carrier bags are use in the UK a year
• 150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK a week
• On average each person in the UK consumes 290 plastic carrier bags a year
• 9 billion plastic carrier bags is roughly 100,000 tonnes, most of which ends up in landfill sites. That’s the same weight as 70,000 cars.
• Plastic carrier bags will take many years to break down even the biodegradable ones
• Plastic carrier bags are a common sight in trees and hedgerows as litter.

Local facts

• We collect 20 tonnes of plastic carrier bags for recycling every year. That’s the same weight as 14 cars. 
• Over 1.5 tonnes of plastic carrier bags are recycled in Lewes district a month. 
• Roughly 18,500 plastic carrier bags are collected in Lewes district a week and this does not include the thousands of bags which residents put in their dustbins and are landfilled.

Although we would like you to recycle as much as you can there are a few problems when it comes to recycling plastic carrier bags.

Contamination - Nearly all plastic carrier bags placed in recycling banks in the District regularly become contaminated with rubbish, take-away food litter, nappies and dog mess. This is a major problem and we have started to close some banks because of it.
Sorting and baling the plastic bags is carried out at the Community Recycling Centre in North Street, Lewes and is a very unpleasant task for the depot staff. We have to store around 60 large sacks of plastic bags before a bale is produced. It can take up to three members of staff about 90 minutes to produce one bale weighing roughly 375kgs, nearly 19,000 bags.

Collections - The original reason why separate plastic bag banks were introduced was to keep them separate and prevent them clogging up our sorting machinery. We found that residents who took their recycling to a mini recycling centre using a plastic bag placed the emptied bag into the plastic bottle bank, rather than in the litter bin. Separate bins for plastic bags were introduced at our larger mini recycling centres. Residents are using the plastic bag banks to put in extra bags they have collected up. This means we have to use extra resources to collect them.

Markets - We do not have regular markets to sell plastic carrier bags to. Most processors will only accept them free of charge. This is because of the high contamination levels and limited overseas markets. Most of the bags we recycle are sent to China and any value in the bags is absorbed in the shipping costs per tonne and rising import duties. The Environment Agency are also tightening controls on quality with even the slightest amount of food, smell or other contamination causing ship containers to be rejected back to the UK. It is possible for plastic bags to be recycled into garden furniture but this is a very limited market.

How to stop using plastic bags!

Wherever you live and wherever you shop, try to remember to re-use your old carrier bags, your ‘bags for life’ or a cloth bag or rucksack.

• Let the checkout staff know you’ve brought your own bag before they pack it for you.
• Use your shopping bag as many times as possible. 
• Remember to take bags with you every time you go shopping. 
• Keep spare bags in your car or at work so you’re never without. 
• When you have finished unpacking your shopping at home make your last task to put the shopping bags back in the car ready for next time. 
• The carrier bags you have already accumulated can be used as binliners instead of purchasing purpose made bin liners.
• Look for bin liners made of corn starch.