British Prime Minister Theresa May recently announced that all avoidable plastic waste will be eliminated within 25 years. This is one of the goals of the government's new environmental strategy.

China’s ban on the import of plastic and other garbage has caused a great impact on the UK this year. From 2012 to 2016, an average of 65% of the plastic waste exported by the UK was shipped to China, equivalent to 500,000 tons per year.

"This is a big blow to us and it means that our industry will undergo major changes." said Allin, CEO of the British Recycling Association. "For the past two decades, we have relied on China to deal with our waste. Including 55% of waste paper and 25% of plastics, the UK currently does not have the capacity to deal with most of the waste." He urged the British government to invest in new recycling plants and infrastructure.

The government declared war on plastics. On January 11, at the environmental protection plan conference entitled "Building a Cleaner and Greener Britain", Theresa May announced related plans, including popularizing the use of plastic products in the UK and increasing government funding for plastics. Product technological innovation and system reform. The government will take restrictive actions at every stage of plastic production and consumption, promote plastic-free channels in supermarkets, and increase consumption tax on disposable plastic items such as takeaway boxes.

Teresa May emphasized that plastic waste is one of the serious pollution problems that cannot be ignored in the UK today. When asked about the impact of Brexit on environmental protection, she said that it will not lead to lower environmental standards, saying that the UK will formulate a new, world-leading independent statutory organization plan to hold the government accountable.

British Secretary of the Environment Gove said that he is considering charging a fee of 0.25 pounds for disposable coffee cups. His long-term plan is to reduce the proportion of plastic in the economy, reduce the amount of plastic, and simplify local authority regulations to make it easier for people. Determine what is recyclable and non-recyclable, and increase the recovery rate. He said that Britain must "stop sending garbage overseas."

In 2014, the industry organization ‘European Plastics’ estimated that the UK used a total of 3.7 million tons of plastic each year. The Environmental Monitoring Committee of the British House of Commons also proposed that the United Kingdom should impose a tax on plastic packaging, imposing the highest tax rate on the most difficult to recycle plastics, and the least on the easiest to recycle. In 2015, the UK imposed a tax on single-use plastic bags in large stores and supermarkets, and the number of single-use plastic bags dropped by 83%.

Coffee chain Starbucks announced that it will try disposable cups in 20 to 25 stores in central London at a price of £0.05. It is scheduled to start in February and last for at least three months.

The British supermarket chain "Iceland" has vowed to completely ban plastics on its own-brand products within five years and replace all plastic packaging with pulp pallets.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan also plans to launch new water dispensers and bottling station facilities in the British capital to reduce the use of disposable packaging such as bottled plastic.

Regarding the EU’s new plastic strategy released on the 22nd, a spokesperson for the British Ministry of the Environment responded that the EU’s strategy has lagged behind the UK in some respects.

“Although the EU is now studying the restrictions on microplastics, we have banned the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products. This is the first country in Europe to do so,” the spokesperson said. “And we don’t just want to ensure plastic packaging. It is recyclable and we want to completely eliminate avoidable plastic waste. Addressing the scourge of plastic is an important part of our green Brexit plan."

The 25-year plan developed by the British Ministry of Environment is 151 pages long. In addition to plastic waste issues, it also covers land use and soil health, coping with climate change and air quality issues, and encourages people to make better use of green space and nature.

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said that the British environment needs a 25-month contingency plan, not a 25-year vision. "Theresa May has a unique opportunity to meet the challenge and make the UK a global leader in the field of environmental protection. It should not be wasted." He said.

Enterprises discover new business opportunities. Clean Tech, located in Lincolnshire, UK, is the only factory in the UK that uses recycled plastic bottles to produce food-grade recycled plastic PET. A person in charge of the plant said that it is difficult for companies to succeed in the recycled plastics industry because it requires a large amount of capital investment and faces huge technical challenges.

The company's parent company Plastipak is Europe's largest producer of recycled plastic bottles. A Plastipak spokesperson said that the company's three factories in the United Kingdom, Berne, France and Luxembourg are all facing challenges and urgent reforms are needed to keep recycled plastics in the country for processing.

"This should be a growth industry, but also a business venture. The big obstacle is that the cost of raw materials is lower than the cost of recycled plastics, partly because of low oil prices." The spokesperson explained that in the UK, due to poor recycling systems, Lack of inventory to create recycled plastics.

British recycling company Recycling Technologies has invented a technology that can chemically manufacture low-quality plastic waste into a fuel that the company calls Plaxx. It is said that this fuel has a wide range of uses and can be used as a raw material for new plastics.

The head of the company, Griffiths, admitted that the recycling industry does not lack the raw materials that can be used to make this plastic. He said that all plastic waste currently sent to landfills can be turned into raw materials, but because the recycling rate is now very low, most of the public have not thrown these plastic waste into the correct recycling bins. He said the recycling industry now needs to invest more money to deal with the global excess of waste after China's import ban.