Jersey plastic bottle banks ‘contaminated’
Jersey residents are being reminded which items they can recycle, following ‘contamination’ of plastic bottle recycling banks at the island’s household waste recycling centre (HWRC).
Although the island does not currently recycle low-grade rigid plastics or any other plastic other than high-grade plastic bottles (due to a lack of required infrastructure), islanders have been depositing black food trays as well as tubs and trays in plastic bottle recycling banks.
Jersey’s Recycling Manager, Emma Richardson has said that this is ‘contaminating’ viable materials: "We are receiving a lot of non-bottle plastics such as black food trays in our plastic bottle recycling banks.
“Unfortunately we are not collecting these for recycling at the moment and so they are actually contaminating our loads of plastic bottles."
Speaking to Resource, Richardson added that though there is not "an outlet for lower grade plastics such as food trays at present", the council does expect this to change as the recycling of lower grade packaging plastics "becomes more commonplace in the UK and in Europe".
The Transport and Technical Services department, responsible for recycling, has now issued a reminder to residents outlining that though they can recycle all types of plastic bottles, including ‘clear, coloured and opaque bottles ranging from water bottles to detergent and shampoo’, any other plastic should be ‘thrown away with general rubbish’.
Richardson said the other plastics were more difficult to recycle so were not currently being collected.
Plastic bottle recycling banks can be found at the HWRC at Bellozanne, at the 18 public bring banks and through the kerbside schemes operating in St John, St Mary, St Lawrence, Trinity and parts of St Helier.
