Plastic now the toughest hurdle, says Greenpeace

Greenpeace’s ocean campaigner Tisha Brown says plastics are the main obstacle to overcome.

She said: ‘Council recycling officers have a tough job right now. Not only are they dealing with reduced budgets, but they are doing it in the context of a global market failure in the recycling industry.

‘If we continue with the current approach, next year’s figures will make this year’s tiny improvement look quite heroic as larger and larger quantities of plastic drift out to sea.

‘We need to address this problem at source, and that is manufacturers making single-use, disposable products like bottles and straws out of a material which is difficult and expensive to recycle.

‘Making manufacturers pay to clean up their mess is the best way of encouraging them to design better products.’