Activists Dump Half a Ton of Plastic on Downing Street
Greenpeace, plastic waste, and Boris Johnson.
On the 13th of July, Greenpeace activists dumped over half a ton of plastic waste on Boris Johnson’s doorstep. More precisely, 625 kilograms of plastic — the amount which the United Kingdom reportedly exports every thirty seconds on average.
The UK is currently the second-largest producer of plastic waste in the world, according to the latest research published in the journal Science Advances. It is only surpassed by the United States, which generates the most annual plastic trash per capita globally. When it comes to recycling, more than half of the plastic that the British government claims to recycle is exported somewhere else. However, there is no subsequent follow-up on these exports, which means that the plastic may end up in landfills or incinerators instead of being recycled.
Turkey has recently become the primary destination for the UK’s plastic exports. All despite the fact that the country does not have the capacity to recycle enough of its own plastic let alone what it imports. This is something which has been recently exposed by Greenpeace, whose investigations revealed the illegal dumping of plastic trash from the UK and Germany across southern Turkey. Under the current legislation, this plastic should have been…
