I was asked recently why Teignbridge District Council doesn’t accept plastic film in the recycling bins, so I found out. I now have a very detailed report on the current policy from the Devon Authorities Strategic Waste meeting, which I am happy to share with anyone who wants a little light reading for the weekend.
Plastic film is difficult to process because of contamination issues (with food for example) and lack of suitable markets. It makes up less than 9% of the contents of the black bins in Teignbridge. Our current recycling rate is 56.3% but we need to get that to 60% by 2025. This is challenging when last year saw no increase, however there is a way…
Food waste makes up over 22% of the contents of black bins in Teignbridge, a further 12% is garden waste and 11% paper. This should be going into the blue food waste, garden and paper collections. We have the facilities to recycle these, we just need to make sure it goes in the right container. We would easily meet the 60% recycling target, have more compost and, perhaps, less smelly black bins.

Andy Swain