if there's nothing to indicate, "guys, there might be some "quite significant restrictions on this," then it is potentially misleading. so, is terracycle all it aspires to be? you know, my hope at the end, one day we're all going to die and my hope is that, when that happens, that the world misses me. i've come to treyarnon beach, in cornwall, for the monthly local clean—up. we're all looking for the same thing. the majority of the plastic will be on the high—tide point or the car park — we know there's litter up there — and the sand dunes. four years ago, emily and herfriend lawrence found something that shows just how long plastic pollution can last. i found this crisp packet when i was ten years old. i looked at it, and was, like, this is not a crisp packet you would see today. i've never seen this design on a walkers crisp packet. so i think i gave it to emily, and she said, "that looks like something from a long time ago." the packet dates back to the 1980s — much, much older than lawrence. may i have a look? the story of the 30—year—old crisp packet went viral, sparking calls for change. it was in news all across the world. it was even in the new york post. the picture of lawrence with his crisp packet did so well. because a ten—year—old, holding up a packet three times his age tells the story of plastic pollution. we have an insatiable appetite for plastic packaging. it's convenient, it increases the life of our food and it's easy to transport. in the uk, we use nearly 2.5 million tonnes of plastic packaging every year. some of it, like plastic drink bottles, is relatively easy to recycle but some is much harder, like flexible food packaging. and here's why. so i've a selection of flexible plastic packaging in front of me. what a lot of people don't realise is the reason these are so difficult to recycle is because they use multiple materials. this is a laminate structure — two layers of polypropylene, one of those layers has a very thin layer of aluminium. this pouch will have a layer of polypropylene again, then a layer of aluminium, actual aluminium foil, a layer of pet. cheese wrapper is made from nylon and ldpe. they're great for saving resources and they're very lightweight, so they save emissions in transport but then, when it comes to recycling, it becomes more complicated. my name is tom and i'm the founder and ceo of te rra cycle. this company says it's got the answer. it wants to eliminate the idea of waste. set up in the us in 2001, terracycle calls itself a global leader in recycling. one of its most high—profile partnerships in the uk was with walkers, following the discovery of that crisp packet on a cornish beach. working with big brands, it says it can recycle the unrecyclable. from cigarette butts to chewing gum and everything in between. sending it to places like this so it can then be turned into things like this. it guarantees nothing is sent to landfill or incinerated. the company says it's already recycled more than seven billion items worldwide, much of it plastic that most councils don't want us to put in our household recycling bins. we are joined by tom szaky. its founder has been hailed on the world stage. here he is, speaking to global leaders at the world economic forum. these goals that we have at terracycle in a humble way... i was invited to their european headquarters in west london to meet the man himself. hi, tom. hello. how are you doing? terracycle is a mission—driven waste management company, and we've been privileged to be working for 20 years across 21 countries, including here in the uk for well over a decade. i've dedicated my entire professional life to try to make this world somewhat better for my children. you know, my hope, at the end, one day we're all going to die, and my hope is that, when that happens, that the world misses me. it's a bold statement and an ambitious vision. but can his company deliver? we decided to take a closer look. first, we wanted to know how easy it is to recycle through terracycle. you can help us at kp snacks by going to terracycle. there are several ways you can get your waste to terracycle. we're going to look at recycling schemes sponsored by big brands. most use community collection points, in places like schools, front gardens and community centres. they're run by volunteers who can be rewarded with money for charity. but some people have complained on social media that there aren't enough collection points. yourfood pouch recycling drop—offs are a million miles away and we live in central london. our nearest @terracycleuk is more than two hours away. i'm on my way to meet the piesse family. we've asked them to try out terracycle. as a family, we recycle all the time actually. it'sjust part of our daily routine. recycling is such an important matter. if you don't recycle, it could end up in the sea and affect all the marine life. it's our planet and we need to look after it. they live in west london, just a few miles from terracycle�*s european hq. shall we take a look at some of the packaging? i've brought you a gift. you're too kind. they collected a week's worth of packaging. more bread. and i brought some along too. next, they have to look at the terracycle website. warburtons have that sign, the terracycle sign. shall we look at that? it says, "any brand of bakery plastic packaging." the first thing they learn is that each type of packaging — for bread, cheese, snacks, biscuits or dishwasher tablets — has to go to a separate collection point. i'm seeing a bit of an issue here, because you have to go to different locations — you can'tjust go to one place and do your terracycling for different packaging. the different collection points are between two and eight miles away from their home and in different directions. there we go, there's hayes. we work, we have busy lives, and there's no way that we can, we can fit this into our routine, because it's so spread out. for today, they go to the two closest collection points. i think i spy the terracycle logo. there we go, mia. here we are. 0h, actually, it's not, that's — no, it's not right. oh no, the recycling programme is closing. the collection point has closed down. it didn't say that on the terracycle website. terracycle says it relies on volunteers to tell them if they stop collecting. but the people at the church say it was closed by terra cycle. the company now says the volunteers can reopen if they want to. back in the car, off to the next one. ok, here we are. "recycle your cracker, biscuit and cake wrappers." this is the right place then. well done, kids. yes. people want to walk, don't they, and pop their recycling in the, the bins, they don't want to drive everywhere. this has annoyed me a little bit. because we've spent an hour already going to two different places, imagine if we had to go to those other places. in all, the family made a ten—mile round trip, but were only able to drop off 35 grams of plastic. of course, it was the first time you've done it, lots of good intentions there, is it something that you, you would try again, do you think? i think we would try it again. in ourfree time. the intention's there that we want to do it, but i do think it's a big ask, i really do, because it's so, so challenging, in terms of the geography. there's a sort of cost benefit analysis here of, what is the benefit, what is the environmental benefit of driving, er, literally miles, or to drop off what could be a small bag of crisp packets? when you describe terracycle's business model to people, i often get a kind of "really!?" look off them. terracycle says its independently verified research shows the community model is environmentally beneficial. but it didn't take into account emissions from driving to collection points. no—one uses our programmes the way that you asked that family to use our programmes. they either are already going to a collection location, that is the most common behaviour type. or, if not, it's usually on their way and they're accumulating close to three to four kilos per waste stream. a crumpet bag, it weighs four grammes, so if you wanted two kilos, you'd have to get through 500 packets of crumpets. that seems unrealistic for a family, doesn't it? but that's not how people use our programmes. i agree, no—one is going to consume that level of crumpet bags. they're typically accumulating to get to those numbers, not at their home, but at a place of aggregation, like at an office. i think this is the important part when you judge a programme. it should bejudged on how citizens are using the programme today. now, can it be more convenient? and can it be easier? absolutely. terracycle says it's started a new scheme in west london so people can drop off a range of packaging at their local recycling centre. brands pay a fee for working with terracycle — it can be anything from tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. the amount that can be recycled depends on how much they pay, so there's a limit to the number of collection points. for many, the fee also includes use of the terracycle logo on their packaging. so, when shoppers buy something with that logo on it, would they know what it means? i've done a bit of a shop. bought a bunch of stuff here. i'm looking at some packaging with consumer law expert professor chris willett. all these products have the terracycle logo on them. do you think that if someone was to see that logo whilst they're doing their shop, they'd understand what it actually means? there's clearly an indication that it's recyclable. so then the question becomes, what kind of conditions are there on that? i don't see any conditions or the fact that even conditions exist here. so, i suppose that the average consumer is likely to be misled if it turns out that there are significant conditions. one of those conditions is the distance you might have to travel to recycle your waste. let's take a look at these digestives. the largest lettering says, "film recycled" and then it says "in the uk and ie by terracycle.eu." there's nothing to qualify that at all. there's nothing to suggest, "you better visit the website, and you might find out more". there's no indication that there would be any significant restrictions. is it misleading? does it suggest that the recycling is an easier process than perhaps it actually is? my feeling is yes, it is misleading, precisely because of the headline signal message, and then quite how long it would take to work out that there are serious qualifications on that, that could involve significant travel. there are products that use the phrase "recycled by terracycle" though that doesn't reference any caveats? no, it does, "by terracycle." so, we always mandate with brands that at minimum, not at maximum, but at minimum they must say "by or through terra cycle. " let's make it very clear that this is not council recycling, that this is recycling through terracycle. and then consumers typically will go to our website where there is phenomenal detail on exactly how every programme works, what happens to the waste, you name it. if we take these, the kp nuts, of course, it's got the logo there, says, "please dispose of this responsibly, find out how you can "recycle it at terracycle.co.uk." there's nothing here that's saying, "you might have to travel." it's just saying, "look at the website." that to me suggests, "well, i can look later, "but it will be easy." so, what happens if there are no collection points near you. can you set up your own? we checked on the website. the kp scheme was closed to new volunteers. it says, "please note the programme is currently "full. "please drop off your waste to an existing drop—off location." well, i think the terracycle logo is clearly indicating as a headline you can recycle. now, if there's nothing alongside that to indicate, "guys, there might be some quite significant restrictions "on this," it is potentially misleading. the owners of mcvities digestives, pladis, denies the labels are misleading, and says they contain a clear reference to the terracycle.eu website, where consumers can find more information. kp snacks says it knows people want to be able to recycle more and it's committed to providing options for its consumers. last year, terracycle and eight brands it works with in the us settled a legal challenge over recycling claims on their packaging. they'd failed to mention any limitations to their collection schemes. so, why not be more clear? why not put the caveats clearly on the packaging? well, just as i was going say, that's exactly what we're doing. so, this year we are asking brands — it's rolling out this year, all of this, er, all of these requests — to ensure that brands add any qualifiers — if there's a geographic limit, for example, or if there's other forms of limit, that's exactly what we're doing and we're doing it nationally in the united states, and in fact, every country around the world, so, you will see it in the future on uk packaging. next, we want to check out how much waste gets collected and recycled through terracycle's partnerships with big brands. you know when you look at a crisp packet and think, "that would make a great garden chair"? as well as paying for recycling and the use of the logo, some brands also pay for marketing and pr. we looked at two of the biggest brand—sponsored collection schemes — kp snacks and pladis, the owner ofjacobs, mcvities and carrs. this is pladis promoting its recycling achievements. but what do these numbers tell us? those millions is a good thing but it's the percentage, the proportion of the individual pieces of packaging produced by those brands. so, what is the percentage? that'll be an interesting statistic to see on their website for the crisp packets that they have. what percentage are they working on here? we decided to crunch the numbers. nearly 16.5 million wrappers have been recycled over the last ten years, according to terracycle, through the pladis scheme. sounds impressive. but, just to give you an idea of scale and how many of these products are sold. mcvities has said that 56 million packets of plain digestives and 71 million packets of chocolate digestives are consumed each year, and that's just these two products. so, pladis�* scheme collected the equivalent of i% of wrappers for just these two products during that time. and that looks like this. it's a drop in the ocean. it's a start though, it's a beginning, and before terracycle existed, there was no solution to recycle those wrappers. it's the same story with kp snacks. it makes hula hoops, skips and mccoys. terra cycle says nearly 16.3 million wrappers have been collected for recycling in the uk over the last three years. but kp themselves says nearly 500 million packets of hula hoops are consumed in the uk each year. so, kp�*s terracycle programme collected the equivalent of around 1% of hula hoop packets generated during that period. kp snacks says it's trying to reduce its use of plastic and there's no infrastructure in the uk right now to collect, sort and recycle flexible plastic at scale. pladis says it works with terracycle to ensure its collection capacity meets consumer demand. and that it's also part of a scheme running collection points at some major retailers. so, are terracycle making brands look greener than they are, and could it be slowing the development of more sustainable packaging? i think at the very base level, there is some recycled material that comes back to them, but it is a pretty small percentage of what they're producing. i think more broadly than that, it's the pr opportunities to say that they're working with a respected organisation. the worry is that by using models like terracycle, that they're using it to kick the can down the road and that they can push the target further away, all the while continuing to benefit from the current practices, ratherthan making the deep changes that are needed. there's a disparity there, isn't there, between the theory and what's actually happening. isn't that the very definition the definition of greenwashing? no, it's not. the definition of greenwashing is lying to consumers. any sustainability programme starts at zero and then grows, based on the interests of the stakeholders. and so, if you were to approach sustainability in the way you are, then no programme would ever start and no programme would ever have the chance to flourish and grow. is it not a concern that if you've got tiny percentages of these packaging being recycled, that could actually hinder companies taking more radical action? see, i think that's a completely false concept, and i'll tell you why — because we're in the room with these organisations all the time. so, let's just imagine we're a biscuit brand, 0k? we've been, for decades, making biscuit wrappers that are not recyclable and now, we want to make it recyclable and there's no suitable commercially viable design choices. so, their next best bet is to take voluntary responsibility over that particular waste stream. terracycle says it's on a mission to change the world. i think we can shift and become much more in tune with nature and consuming and thriving in a sustainable way. it says it has strict controls on what it calls its recycling chain of custody and it never exports waste abroad. but a recent undercover investigation has raised questions about those assurances. woman: at 4am, we return to the facility. _ august 2021, bulgaria. a team ofjournalists is investigating the international trade in plastic waste. we notice that each bale is made up of only one type of packet. cat food. bread bags. crisp packets. looking closer, we find a label. they've come from a company called terracycle. the journalists discover more than 20 bales of plastic packaging at this recycling facility. it's all from the uk and all from terracycle collection schemes. i was shocked because we do not send waste abroad and we always mandate that everything is recycled and clearly, a subcontractor had broken their legal commitment with us. the moment we found out about this, we immediately tracked it, found it, at great expense recovered it, and it's now being recycled locally in the uk. but we decided to take a closer look at what had gone on. now, this is where it gets a bit complicated. terracycle says it was using a recycler based here in the west midlands called berry polymer, hired for them by a waste broker. but it was another company, called dts trading, also based here and run by the same man, that sent the terracycle waste to bulgaria. dts said the bales were accidentally loaded on to a truck heading to bulgaria. they say that comes down to human error on the part of a temporary forklift truck driver. a bit surprising that they would end up in a place like bulgaria. ed kosior is a plastics recycling expert. dts did provide a justification. they suggested that this material was loaded wrongly by a temp forklift truck driver. so, perhaps it was a one—off. do you think that's plausible? it is plausible. the recycling industry does have a turnover of staff and if you don't train the staff, that can happen. however, if you're loading a lorry with goods, you're normally loading 20 tonnes and so, normally, the goods have to be earmarked for a destination. it would be a big error to send all this material to the wrong destination, especially if it's difficult to recycle. dts says it wasn't illegal to send waste to bulgaria and it was a genuine mistake, but it's not the first time dts has found itself in hot water. the company has been in trouble with the authorities. in 2018, it was sanctioned by the environment agency. a freedom of information request for this programme revealed that was for sending contaminated waste to indonesia. terracycle say it's never worked with dts, only berry polymer. but its licence to recycle was in the name of dts. and berry polymer ceased trading a year before the terracycle waste was sent to bulgaria. berry polymer is only connected to dts because they share the same owner. they're independent companies. we never did any work with dts. and we were working with berry polymers, which is a recycler of waste, and the only connection is that the owner happens to be the same. so, i'm really confused — how did the waste that had been collected by terracycle end up at the dts plant, then? certainly. i believe that berry polymer and dts work in the same general sort of campus. we were focused entirely on berry polymers, and berry polymers is in good standing, and their process is, er, exactly what we asked it to be. but last month, the man who was in charge of both berry polymer and dts, tianyong wang, pleaded guilty to illegally exporting household waste to indonesia in 2019. mr wang says he's sorry he failed to comply with export regulations on that occasion, and says that his company has improved its practices and no longer exports waste. terracycle says it'll never work with mr wang again and is considering legal action against its waste broker. recycling plastic packaging by turning into something else is terracycle's calling card, but it wants to move on. in loop, instead of the consumer owning the package, they borrow the package. tom szaky�*s next big thing is reusable. as a citizen, you can go to the store, buy your favourite product in a fully reusable package already filled and everything, just pay a deposit. then, when you're done, you can return it to any participating retailer, where it doesn't end up as waste or even in recycling, it gets cleaned and then refilled, and then around it goes again. three, two, one! nicely done! what is that? so, this could be from anything. it's just a soft plastic film, so maybe packaging, but who really knows? but you can see it started off as something much bigger and broke down. i don't want it to fly off. i will try to get it in there. the good news is that the amount of plastic packaging on supermarket shelves is reducing. we're recycling four times as much today as we were 20 years ago. many brands, including some that work with terracyle, have pledged to deal with the problem of plastic packaging by 2025. but, right now, lots of it still ends up in landfill or burnt, and saying all of it's recyclable risks encouraging brands and consumers to feel good when greater change is needed. hello. i think, overall, the weather is looking pretty good for most of us, most of the time, over the next two or three days. however, there is certainly some rain in the forecast and through the early hours, you can see it across the north—west of england, just about into southern wales, and a few showers in northern ireland, too. these are the morning temperatures around 8am. now, through the afternoon on friday, we are expecting further showers to continue here in the north—west of the uk, but also showers will develop during the afternoon across parts of wales and the midlands. some of them could be heavy and thundery through this zone here. elsewhere, we're in for a bright day — 22 in london, 20 in western scotland, but a lot fresher there on the north sea coast. now, saturday and sunday is going to be quite mixed. i think showers expected across the south of the uk on saturday and then sunday, further north. this is bbc news. i'm chris rogers. our top stories: president biden addresses the american people, saying something has to be done about the country's shocking level of gun violence. for god's sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? how many more innocent american lives must be taken before we say enough, enough? as ukraine approaches 100 days of war, president zelensky once again calls for more military help from western nations. and after winning his defamation case in front of a crowd of thousands, the queen takes the salute, kickstarting four days of platinum jubilee celebrations.
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