Many people in the UK carefully sort out their waste and assume they are doing their bit for the environment. More of our plastic waste, however, now goes to Turkey than to any other country in spite of experts claiming that that location has insufficient capacity to cope with its own generated material (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-53181948/why-is-uk-recycling-being-dumped-by-turkish-roadsides). The inevitable result is that some of the people who accept payments for dealing with the plastic waste, dump it by Turkish roadsides and burn it. Burning plastic can be highly toxic as well as adding to the 'greenhouse gas' production which drives climate change. This kind of story also provides strong disincentives for people in the UK to take recycling seriously. It would be much better if the UK dealt with all its own plastic waste (of all types), without dumping it on other countries. That would cut out both transport emissions and 'rogue recycling'. We produced it; we should deal with it!
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