QMRE'S RESPONSE TO PANORAMA RECYCLING PROGRAMME
The Panorama programme of 30th May 2022 (Recycling: Where Does My Rubbish Go?) on recycling plastic waste was, while hugely interesting, a tad harsh on Tom Szaky, the CEO of TerraCycle the American plastic recycling company that was the focus of the programme.
Yes, the TerraCycle programme accounts for just a drop in the ocean - literally and figuratively - of the huge volume of plastic waste afflicting the global environment but, as Szaky reasonably asserted, you have to start somewhere. To suggest that TerraCycle's efforts were a form of ‘greenwashing' was, to my mind, unfair.
Incidentally, Sarah Greenwood's (Leader Packaging Technology University of Sheffield) assertion that flexible food packaging was more difficult to recycle because of the layer of aluminium contained within the construct was not completely accurate. The layer of ‘aluminium' is actually a vacuum metalisation - more like a print - which can be recycled chemically and mechanically with some additional work.
And of course, with regard to ‘starting somewhere' in combating the menace of plastic waste pollution, TerraCycle is not alone in the fight.
QM Recycled Energy (QMRE) utilises chemical recycling to depolymerise the plastic - thermolysis - turning the plastic back to its constituent parts - oil - before further processing turns the oil back into new and renewable plastic or alternatively uses the oil as fuel for power.
We are rolling out a network of these systems throughout the UK and Republic of Ireland in order to open up a new front in the fight against plastic waste pollution.
Tim StClair-Pearce
Co-founder & joint managing director
QM Recycled Energy
Editors' note: For further information contact Richard Burke QMRE marketing communications. rb@qmre.ltd Tel: 07711 444 198