Brussels - SRI Consulting has released a study stating that “disposing of bottles in landfill generates a lower carbon footprint than recycling or incineration”. The reports also states that waste “shipping distances are not footprint critical”. According to EuPR the SRI report named “PET’s Carbon Footprint: To Recycle or Not to Recycle” is inconsistent with the move towards a recycling society. “This publication is unwise, dangerous for sustainability and goes against the European legislation” according to Casper van den Dungen, EuPR PET working group chairman and vice-president.

Moreover, van den Dungen adds that “by applying the SRI Consulting results we would lose valuable material in landfills. The used model is intrinsically wrong as in reality landfill should be avoided as a starting principle”. Regarding exports outside Europe, “the study is wrongly indicating that a one way transport is not critical from a carbon footprint point of view. Although, much is coming back as imported products with a higher carbon footprint compared to our local alternatives in Europe”.

Additionally, these “kind of studies are hazardous because they are bringing a wrong message to the population: your efforts to recycle are useless”. “It goes against all the efforts achieved during the past decades in order to reduce litter”.

Finally, the PET Recyclers Chairman says that “publishing such reports to question recycling doesn’t help to reach the legal and environmental targets in an already enough complex market’.

EuPR is the professional representative body of plastics recyclers in Europe. EuPR members constitute 80 pecent of the European recycling capacity, processing more than 5 million tonnes of collected plastics per year.

Quelle: European Plastics Recyclers (EuPR)

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