Fife Council recently introduced flexible plastics and film recycling into its kerbside recycling offering, the comingled collection service supplying Scotland’s first plant to recycle the materials.
Based in Dunfermline, the plant will receive soft plastics to be sorted and baled, before being transported to YES Recycling’s location in Glenrothes. The bales of plastic will then be used to form Ecosheet, an alternative to plywood to be used in construction, DIY, agriculture, and fabrication.
Cllr Ross Vettraino, Convener of the Environment, Protective Services Sub-committee, said: “The Council is very pleased to start accepting flexible plastics (plastic film) at the kerbside for recycling. Fife Council is leading the way, and is the first Council in Scotland to offer a kerbside collection service for soft plastics.
"Plastics including plastic bags, vegetable bags and wrappers, the film from the top of ready meal trays, plus pet food pouches and bubble wrap can now be deposited in the green bins.
"By recycling our plastic to make new products such as Ecosheets we are moving away from using virgin raw materials and taking a step towards developing a circular economy. Not only are we helping reduce carbon emissions and combating climate change when we recycle our plastic we also make a financial saving by avoiding the £100k cost of disposal and landfill tax each year. ”
Fife Council will use the TOMRA Optical Sorter to segregate flexible plastics, purchased with the £470,000 it received from the Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund. Administered by Zero Waste Scotland, the fund was created to help communities move towards a more circular economy and ‘transform Scotland’s recycling infrastructure’.
Soft plastic recycling: recent progress
The launch in Fife follows wider UK initiatives to increase the recycling of soft plastics, such as the launch of Tesco’s in-store soft plastic recycling scheme in March 2021. The scheme allows customers to return soft plastics to stores, which will then be recycled and used in Tesco’s food packaging.
Last July, Co-op introduced a similar scheme within their stores, in aid of the supermarket becoming the first in the country with fully recyclable food packaging, and to help avoid complications in kerbside recycling.
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