‘Wasteminster’: Greenpeace offloads mass of plastic outside Downing Street
Activists from environmental charity Greenpeace have offloaded 625kg of plastic outside Downing Street today, while one activist donned a caricature mask of prime minister Boris Johnson.
The amount of plastic is the same volume of plastic waste the UK exports every 30 seconds, according to the charity.
“We hope this pile of plastic helps the government to not only visualise the huge volume of plastic waste we export, but also to understand what it feels like to have waste dumped on your doorstep,” senior plastics campaigner at Greenpeace UK, Nina Schrank, said.
The waste dumped outside the gates of Westminster was discarded litter collected by volunteers, from areas like British beaches.
The UK exported 688,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2020 which equates to an average of 1.8 million kilograms every day, the charity calculated.
It comes as Turkey confirmed a U-turn on its decision to limits imports of most types of plastic, which Greenpeace said means there is a potential higher risk of the UK recycling less.
Political campaigner at the charity said: “It’s concerning that the Turkish government succumbed to industry lobbying and postponed their ban on plastic waste imports.
“With the Turkish government reportedly stalling on their own restrictions, the UK government must urgently ban all plastic waste exports and stop our plastic mess impacting other countries.
“We also need legislation to make UK companies reduce the amount of plastic they produce in the first place.”