57. Why the UN Plastic Treaty failed...again!

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one-sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss the plastics treaty. Are buzzballs rubbish or not? And I have a question about making triangles out of crisp packets. Back to school for us, Robbie. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book, and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from rubbish friend. Good morning, Robbie.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hey James.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Did you used to make triangles out of crispackets?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Oh, yeah, it does definitely remind me of the school canteen.

unknown 0:36

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Okay, well, we'll come on to that. And I'm sure we'll talk a lot about buzzballs as well. Oh gosh, yeah. Yeah, this is gonna be a good episode. I know it is. We've got to wade through this plastic treaty first. And in our unending quest to name our listeners, I'm pleased to say that we are making progress, Robbie.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Okay. We've had a lot of traction on Discord, haven't we? I'm I've seen bits and bobs coming through.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

We have had a lot. I was surprised how kind of invested everyone got. Everyone was like, okay, wasters, what do we think to wasters? So let me just give you a brief kind of synopsis that the general view is wasters, while good, could be seen as quite negative.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

We knew that. But what has ended up happening is every time someone comments going, it could be quite negative, someone else comments going, I love it. Yeah. So I've got this classic kind of 50-50 going on with wasters. Then we had someone come in, Philip, I think, came in and said, What about binions? Ooh, that's good. Which I loved. I love binions. The trouble is if wasters has negative connotations, I suspect minions also does. And I don't know which of us would be grew. I don't want to know. So I've sort of discounted binions, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Like I love it, Philip. Philip knows I love it. Someone then came back with why is a waster, which I also really liked, but again, it's a bit of a mouthful. We need to kind of get down to just one word, I think.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

It's a good build on it. And I know it definitely sort of jumps off the back of the fact that people say loyal waster here. That's like a common way that people introduce themselves, not just writing into the podcast, but when you're generally talking around the world of recycling and waste management. But yeah, it is a bit of a mouthful.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And I have received emails this week saying loyal waster here, and I've really liked it. So thank you to Will on Discord for Wiser Waster, really like that. So Binion and Wiser Waster, I think might not make it to my poll. But waster is still in, because 50% of people like it. And then I remembered a word we have used quite a few times on this podcast and the thing I want to be on my street, which is a binfluencer. And I'm wondering if we're creating a team of binfluencers. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I like that a lot. So what do we reckon? Robbie, you get to make this decision. This is a poll about a poll. Robbie. A one-person poll. Yes. Are we going with bimfluencers over wasters? Or do we think we should be democratic and put a poll on our Discord for BIMFluencer or Waster? No, we're democratic. We definitely appreciate everyone's views. Let's do the poll. Okay. We'll put it up on Discord. I'll put a little thread in called name change or something. No, name change sounds like we're rebranding. Uh name listeners. There'll be a little poll, BIMFluencer or Waster. I'll put the same poll on Spotify. I'll add up all the scores and whatever gets the most, that's what we're going with. Trash talk. The title today is Why the Plastic Treaty Has Failed Yet Again. And possibly for the final time. So, Robbie, negotiators from almost every country on earth had wanted to agree the world's first legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution. It's a bit of a catchal term. I mean, it's not going to end plastic pollution, but that's just a bit of a spoiler, isn't it, James? They all wrote this, you know, to end plastic. And I just thought, none of what you're doing is going to end plastic pollution. It might reduce it. Anyway, this is the UN Global Plastics Treaty. I liken it to the Paris Climate Agreement, but for plastics. So rather than being about climate change, it's about plastics.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Yeah, it's amazing that all the countries in the world seem to be willing to discuss the issue of just too much plastics, basically, and too much of it finding its way into the wrong spot on planet Earth.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

You're giving Trump a lot of credit saying all the countries robbing. Ish. We will come on to Trump in a bit. So the goals of this treaty are to cut plastic production, eliminate harmful chemicals, to improve recycling systems, and to tackle waste that's choking oceans, rivers, and communities. Now, we have to remember that we are coming into this with the knowledge from episode 42 that only 9% of plastic is recycled globally.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah. It's a tiny amount and you really can't just rely on recycling.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

So we can't apply for this treaty the lens that we sometimes apply, which is our UK lens. We're thinking about a lot of detail that perhaps other countries can't even get the basics. They can't get plastic bottles recycled or glass bottles. So this treaty has to be seen with that global lens. Unfortunately, we now know a deal cannot be reached in time. And at this point, the global plastics treaty has not been agreed.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, it's such a shame that it didn't work out how one would have wanted to. Great endeavour at the outset, but it's just sort of fallen flat in the end.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And a lot of time. I mean, let's talk about the background of it so we can explain how much time. Because I do think we're in the industry, I'd love to know how you feel, but for me personally, I hear a huge amount about the plastics treaty when it's on. You know, the two weeks that it's on, my LinkedIn is suddenly full of all my contacts going there and talking about it and how important it is. The rest of the time, no one talks about it. And I think for the lay person, you know, the word treaty just sort of is a bit rubbish anyway, in terms of explaining what it means. People sort of go into it going, oh, it sounds good. We're all agreeing to reduce plastic. That sounds nice. But I don't think we get into the detail very often, so I thought it was worth us doing this trash talk to explain the details.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

It's true. It sort of it seems to just go in cycles, doesn't it? When it bubbles up, there's a bit of interest, media interest, etc. And then as soon as it ends, generally as a damp squib over the last three or four years, then it just sort of goes away unreported until it bubbles up again.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

How many times do you think countries have come together to talk about the plastic treaty?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I reckon three or four every year since it started, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah. Technically, this one in Geneva, the latest one, is actually the sixth time. Whoa. Part two of the fifth session. But I agree with you, the only ones I've really heard about in earnest are the last yeah, three, including these last two. So to address plastic harms, basically in 2022, 175 countries agreed to develop a global plastics treaty. And this was to tackle the entire life cycle of plastic, with the main goal, I guess, of creating more circular economies. So avoiding single use as much as possible. And what we have just finished on August the 15th, because it got extended by a day, what we have just finished is the second part of the fifth session. So there's actually been five sessions, and this one was split in two because famously the one in Korea, which was the end of last year, the one in South Korea, ended with no agreement, and they decided to extend it to a second part. So the five sessions have been held. So the first one was in Uruguay, then France, Kenya, Canada, Busan and South Korea, which was the end of last year, and we've just had Geneva in Switzerland. I wouldn't have been able to tell you where the others had been held. I could tell you about South Korea and Switzerland, but not the others.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, no, those definitely the fact that it started in Uruguay is definitely news to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So just to be specific on what the treaty was aiming to do, because it's quite important for this section, the treaty was aiming to achieve four key areas. So cutting plastic production, which is the main one, you know, the main thing is can we just make less plastic? Because that will encourage recycling, that will encourage circular economies, it will encourage a move away from plastics where possible. If you have bans on how much can be produced, or you have limits on how much can be produced, then you're going to naturally create a more circular economy. So cutting plastic production, I would say, is probably, well, alongside the next one is the most important. The next one is to ban the most harmful chemicals. And again, this is something that Europe has been doing for a long time, starting to look at things like phthalates and uh BDE, which we talked about in the black plastic episode. Look at these chemicals that are added to plastic to make it function. And as we've said before, there's 16,000 chemicals added to plastic to make it function, depending on what you're making. 8,000 of those chemicals have been studied, and 4,000 of them have been showed to cause some human harm. With all these chemicals, I do tend to find, as I often say, the news stories tend to over-dramatize because what they do is they say this plastic contains a chemical that could kill you. Very rarely do they talk about quantities. And often in plastic, you will have safe levels of those chemicals. So yes, they're in there, and yes, you can write a story. Very rarely does the news actually talk about quantities that are in there and levels you could have daily. So I'm not saying any of that's good. I'm not saying adding chemicals to plastic that could harm us is good. I'm just saying I would like the media to develop their rhetoric so that they talk more about, oh, and you know, you have to boil your black plastic utensil in oil for 15 minutes to achieve those chemicals, and you're just getting 10% of your daily allowance. You know, as you know, my frustration is quantity.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, that's very true. But I think it comes back to the fact that there is just so many countries that this just isn't tested, they aren't banned. There needs to be a bit more of a global perspective on some of this stuff, because to be frank, Europe is ahead in many of these areas.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah, so we can't argue, can we, with the world coming together. You know, 175 countries coming together and saying, let's agree on something. That is great. And those four things, cutting oh sorry, I haven't even done the four, have I? I've done two. Shall I do the third and fourth? So the th so we've got cutting plastic production, bans on most harmful chemicals. The third one is universal design guidance. Always use PET for a bottle, for example. And then the fourth one is financing, because obviously countries that are richer will have to support countries that are poorer in terms of achieving these aims. And so I think it's fair to say if you go back over our back catalogue of 56 episodes before this one, those four things are probably quite a consistent theme for us. We think we should buy less plastic, we should reduce harmful chemicals that are in them, we would love standardization, that came up a lot on Sabra's episode, and economics is the key driver. So if you wanted to summarise our previous episodes, I think those four things are key.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, hats off to the negotiations. You've got to say they have prioritised the right four things. And then that will in turn have subcategories of reducing harmful pollution, etc. etc. But as four headlines, they're absolutely looking at the right issues.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, and it's so important. Just as the treaty started, the Lancet reported that health-related economic loss due to plastic was exceeding one and a half trillion dollars annually. Whoa. Now I have a lot of views on that number.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

We're gonna have to dig into that at some point.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, we'll do a separate episode on that. But you know, there is there are definitely health-related economic losses. We will talk about that another day. But I think it was a good frame for like the discussions are starting, let's remember how important this is. It's great to get a report out at the start that kind of focuses minds. So just to go back to the history, the idea of the treaty came from Peru and Rwanda in 2020 with 27 other countries supporting. So these 29 countries put together a proposal, they co-sponsored a UN resolution, and that led to the creation of a negotiating committee with an initial intention to agree wording by the end of 2024. And as most of our listeners will know, and if you don't, the aim was to finish those negotiations in November, December last year in South Korea, and that failed. And this one we've just had is an extension of that failure. The proposal actually started with an aim of reducing plastic by 40% by 2040 compared to a 2025 baseline, and this had been calculated to align it to the Paris Agreement, which had the goal of limiting global warming to one and a half degrees C.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Oh, okay, so there was some read-across between the two the treaty and the Paris Agreement. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I think this is a nice episode to do a couple of episodes after Sabra's because I think she hit the nail on the head in episode 55. I firmly agree with her. Plastic changed the game. It changed the way that we buy stuff. It meant that companies could package in bigger formats that made everything on the go, resealable formats with bottle lids, and it meant that we could consume a lot more. It meant those companies really survived and thrived, and that meant more and more plastic. Historically, we have seen, and I have seen it so many times over the years, that voluntary agreements will not get us to where we need to be. Companies invariably are driven by the bottom line and shareholder requirements. And so that gene's out of the bottle. We now need to regulate. We now need rules on what the globe can cope with to keep within those one and a half degree limits.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

And then ultimately that needs to be sort of cascaded down into each country's individual governmental policy. And without agreeing it globally, you're just sort of taking kind of pot shots at the problem by having one or two countries doing their own thing and no framework to kind of overall agree where we need to head as a planet. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

And essentially, what went wrong with this plastic treaty is you've got two sides. There are around a hundred countries who wanted ambitious targets and then a relatively small number, and I'm going to say, just quietly, of oil-producing countries that would like a watered-down version. I wonder why oil-producing countries might not want plastic production limits.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

It's kind of crazy, isn't it? Because they're seeing it as a vicarious cap on oil production or sort of a backdoor move, if you like, to try and say, let's stop pumping so much oil out into the world. Which, in a way, you can sort of see their point of view, but on the other hand, this is just particularly looking at how pervasive plastic is. It's not actually really about oil and energy production and all of the other things, applications that oil is used for, plastic only making up a very small percentage of oil use overall around the globe. And it does seem very short-sighted and self-interested of them to be trying to water the whole thing down or just frustrate the talks.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

It's inevitable, isn't it? I mean, you get 175 countries together. I I guess this is the problem with anything like this. If you've all got to sign it, it only takes one country who doesn't like what you're signing for it to stop. Whereas if it was the majority, or you were saying actually we're gonna well, us 174 will do something in this one won't, then that's okay. But that's not what's happening when you talk about a global plastics treaty. You know, everyone sort of has to commit to it, that's the whole point of it. And I think inevitably these things are so hard to get right. So yeah, countries including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran had watered down the treaty so much that the day before the end of the negotiations, it caused Colombia to declare the treaty unacceptable, the draft wording. Panama to say their red lines had not only stomped, but they were spat on and burnt.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Whoa, okay, that's some strong words from Panama.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Very strong. And the UK to say the text was the lowest common denominator. And this just goes back to what we're saying. It will always be the lowest common denominator if you're trying to get 175 countries to agree, all of whom have very different interests, very different views on how the world should operate. And I guess what was interesting to watch over the course of this two weeks of negotiations is a big shift, with it starting with this intention of being about production and chemicals. You know, let's reduce the amount of plastic we're creating, let's reduce the hazardous chemicals that are in, a shift from that to one of recycling and waste management. Essentially, countries that didn't want an ambitious treaty were just saying, well, let's just recycle more. Let's just write into the text that we're all going to recycle more. Now, Robbie, we love recycling. Obviously. I mean, we have to love recycling. But it is definitely lower on the hierarchy than production.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, I think really it's a last ditch effort to say this is still working, and actually, if we just recycle more across the whole of the globe, the problem's gonna either go away or diminish so significantly that we've achieved something through this treaty, which is just so far from the truth. Like, we know, even in those nations in the world with high recycling rates, that it's still not enough. Hence why on this podcast we talk so much about plastics still, because even in European countries with highly developed waste management systems and a relatively well-informed public, it's still a massive problem, and that's why all of the EU countries and the UK are at the treaty, because they actually want a lot more than just saying we'll just recycle the stuff and then the problem goes away, we'll just keep it circulating around the economy. It's about turning the tap off and pouring less in at the beginning of the system. We've already got plenty to go at in terms of recycling.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah, recycling is complementary to a circular economy, and it's not the driver of it. And I liken it to this work I'm doing on reuse. I find it really interesting, this refill reuse stuff. It drives a circular economy, but the chance of failure is so high if you don't have a complementary single-use charge. You've got to kind of shift the focus and say, actually, single-use coffee cups could have a 20p charge applied to them, which would be done through regulation, and that will then drive the reuse economy because you can collect, wash, and reuse packaging for less than 20p.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And that's a mechanism to turn off the tap, a very small one, of single-use coffee cups. What we're looking for in the treaty is a similar mechanism that turns off the tap in general of plastics going into the economy in the very first place.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

It just completely misses the point, doesn't it? If your aim is to reduce production and recycle, but you decide, nah we'll recycle instead, that means you're just going to increase production. So you're missing the whole point. The whole point of this is about, as you say, turn off the tap and it's all gone if you if you just focus at the end of its life. And I guess this is the problem, as I say, with getting so many countries together to try and agree, you start ambitious and then it gets chipped away to get everyone to sign to the moment where it is a completely pointless document. And I actually found a quote on Politico from Mathilde Crepi. I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong, head of environmental transparency for the NGO Environmental Coalition on Standards, which said, consensus is killing this treaty with a handful of countries able to block any whispers of ambition before they materialize. So, Robbie, let's talk about the uh the elephant in the room. That's a very unkind description for him. There is a notable absence in this discussion, which is the US. So let's just bring them into the discussion quickly. So, under Biden in 2024, the US aligned with these ambitious countries. So the 100 ambitious countries that were saying we want to do something about this, we actually want to curb production and reduce chemicals. Biden was on board with that. And I found quite interesting articles actually that said the public, the general public in America, agreed with this. The polling was indicating support for an ambitious approach.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Gosh, that's so like heartening to hear because sometimes you forget that one person who's leading that nation's policy doesn't make up for everyone's diverse views across the whole of the US.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I wonder if that polling has shifted, because obviously we've got a very, very different administration in now. And you know, under a president who has signed an executive order to bring back plastic straws, I would argue we are now in a very different world. It does make me think though, God, if you'd agreed that treaty in Korea, you would have been in. The US would have been in. And so it's very frustrating that it got delayed to this part two, because in that time so much has changed. It's a whole different world, as you say. So they have not remained silent though. I don't want you to think that Trump has remained silent on this point. I'm not sure he can remain silent on any point. Oh, it's a bit political, isn't it? Sorry. In July 2025. I don't think anyone's going to be particularly surprised by my views. But anyway, in July 2025, a memo from the Trump administration urged countries to reject production caps and chemical limits. Trump was very, very, very aligned to the petrochemical industry. No surprise. I mean, he's literally saying drill, baby, drill. There is no surprise here. But he they do have a lot of power, and even though they're not part of the negotiations necessarily, as in they're not agreeing to the treaty, we're not part of the treaty. The fact that they are issuing a memo saying, hey guys, can you all just reject this will have had some sway, particularly in some of those petrochemical countries.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Yeah. Wasn't there like a statistic about how many lobbyists were going to these treaties? I sort of vaguely remember that from the last one in South Korea.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah, that's a really good point. The USA are not the only unhelpful people in this process. So 234. Very nice of them to go with a number that's easy to remember, 234. Imagine that last guy who would have made up 235. They were like, look, it's going to be hard for people to explain on a podcast. That's just Sorry, Dave, you're not coming.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Not enough room in here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

234 is just about the right number. Yeah, so there were 234 industry lobbyists that attended the meetings. Now, interestingly, that outnumbered the delegation of 60 scientists and 36 indigenous representatives. So the lobbyists did that number. Oh my gosh. Now I'm gonna bring a bit of balance here, because you know I get annoyed by media reporting. There was this Guardian article saying, you know, lobbyists are gonna destroy the treaty, there's 234 of them. There were actually 1,500 activists there. So no one was actually reporting how many like of the other side there were. Now the point that was raised that is really interesting is actually lobbyists have a lot more power than activists.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah. What what's the ratio of influence rather than the headcount or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah. No, it'll be way higher. So the lobbyists did actually appear on government delegations, so we're actually involved in some of the treaty text. There's going to be no activists that are part of the design of the treaty. So instead the activists were doing amazing installations and talks and things to try and explain what was happening with plastic. And there were representatives there from Break Free from Plastic, Greenpeace, WWF, and a lot of other NGOs. And, you know, I've been reading a lot of their reporting as we've been going through these couple of weeks. Interestingly, I was listening to the rest of his politics last night, and the guys were talking about how actually normally the Plastic Treaty would get a lot of media coverage. And because of all the things that are happening in the world, Trump and Alaska with Putin and all these things, it's getting very little media coverage. And I would agree with that. I mean there were there was kind of lots when it started day one, there were a lot of news reports. You know, obviously there's summers it ends, but I don't feel like this has been covered in any great in any great way.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Well I think there's just nothing of much excitement to come out of it to cover really.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah, you say that, but you would think, particularly that second to last day, the draft that came out was so watered down and such a surprise to everyone. You would think that would be headline news. It was like, we've just destroyed the plastic treaty. You know, to me that's really important to report, and I just feel like you had to dig quite hard to find stories on it. So I guess to summarize, my question is is no treaty better than a bad treaty? I think in this instance the answer to that question is probably yes. I would rather have no treaty than a bad treaty. As I said, the second to last draft is where things started derailing, and that draft actually only had one mention of plastic production and no mentions of chemicals. I mean, there's just no point signing it. What is the point in getting together and signing a document that doesn't talk about reducing plastic and doesn't talk about reducing chemicals? And had they signed, I mean, this watered-down, unambitious treaty would have allowed countries to continue as they are. And I think one of the things I'm observing is it could have stopped more ambitious countries from stepping up.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, and in a way, it sort of gives them a right of passage, doesn't it? And it sort of says, Yeah, it's okay what you're doing, and and they don't sort of want to let the coalition of the willing or whatever they call themselves get themselves a free pass, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, I 100% agree. And I don't want to come across as defeatist, but there is part of me that's like, how much has this cost? Six meetings over a what a week or two each, 175 countries with huge amounts of delegations flying all over the world. You know, what's the carbon impact of that? To end up with nothing? Or to end up with very little? I don't know. I sort of wish, you know, like when sometimes if you're going to court for like a tribunal or something, a judge looks at it first and says, Do you have a chance here? Yeah. I sort of wish someone had done that with this and gone, guys, we're never going to achieve this. These countries are never going to agree. Maybe we should just get the ambitious countries together to agree something and we could have it hashed out in a couple of days. You know, it's like I just I don't want to sound defeatist or negative. I'm really glad countries get together to have these conversations. But if it just ends up in anger and non-committal agreements, I I just think it's a complete waste of time and carbon. But there is good that has come of it. Let's end on a positive note. There is good that has come of it. There is now alignment between the 100 ambitious countries. And my view is they've met and they've done 90% of the work. So right now, I suspect those countries are in a bit of a state of anger because they haven't got what they wanted. And maybe now is the time for those 100 countries to come together and just not include the countries that aren't ambitious and just agree to something that is ambitious and hope that the unambitious countries come along the journey a bit later on. Additions and corrections. So last week I mentioned that I emailed AUPRO at 11 pm at night and they hadn't quite got back to me. And I was asking them why the recycling rate for aluminium was only 68%, I think it was, if we're able to get it out of incinerated bottom ash. Because my view was we're burning and recycling 95% of our waste. So if we can extract it from the ash after it's been burnt, why aren't we at 95% recycling? Why are we stuck at just less than 70%? Agu came back to me. They gave me a short answer and a long answer. Which one do you want, Robbie? Oh gosh, how much time have we got?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Well, no, we can't just go with the short answer, can we?

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Okay, let's do a bit of a long answer. So I can't literally read this because it is really long. Let me let me try and summarise a little bit. So they talked about the improvement needed on capture rate. This is for non-beverage packaging. I think we talked about this in our episode. Foil and like bathroom aluminium does tend to get overlooked. So things like deodorants and stuff like that, it does tend to get overlooked in people's recycling. So people do struggle to put the right packaging in the right bin, and that can lead to that non-beverage aluminium ending up in the residual waste stream. So that's kind of the first thing. Now, yes, but obviously it might still end up being incinerated. So that doesn't solve my issue. Here's the one that does solve my issue. There are substantial data holes within the system. Aluminium can often be mistracked post-collection and treated as general metal recycling rather than packaging material. So obviously, when they're doing their IBA, they have to work out how much of it was packaging. And there is also, there will be recyclers and incinerators who are not accredited to supply data into the system. And so if aluminium, for example, was exported for incineration, that data might not be coming back to us in terms of the recycling. They might not report that data. The incinerator bottom ash processing capacity in the UK is limited. So not all incinerators will pull the aluminium fraction out of their incinerator bottom ash. And obviously it would need to be done by an accredited company in order to get the data. So you've got those two things kind of at play. Possibly an unaccredited company, so not providing data even though they are doing the process, or possibly not doing the IBA process. We are apparently quite a long way from 100% coverage in incinerator bottom ash.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Okay, and that's an important thing to note for people that if you were starting to think, oh well, don't worry, just chuck an aluminium can anywhere, it'll end up as incinerator bottom ash and it will be recycled. That's not the case. So it is worth definitely going through the extra step of making sure you put your aluminium can or your foil tray or your deodorant can in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Definitely. And then finally, there is a final point. In incineration, some aluminium, particularly thin aluminium like a foil, might just burn up. And so you will have losses where you have like thinner aluminium, it may not make it through that process. And so that's why we say tennis ball size. So tennis ball size allows it to be big enough, not just to be sorted, but also to get into that incinerator bottom ash process. So thank you very much to Martin from ALUPRO who helped us there. Robbie, on Discord we have a bin spotting section. Gosh. I love this section. It's easily our most contributed to section. Every time anyone's on holiday, we get this raft of bins. I love it. Guys, influencers or wasters, whatever the poll says, I love it. Please keep sending us pictures of bins. My particular favourite this week has been from Rebecca T, who saw at a service station outside Oxford, they had like five bins. I put a picture of this on our story, so if you want to see it, have a look. But five bins, all different colours, and then a big roller banner. Okay, so and the roller banner had on it recycle your paper cups in the orange bin. And the roller banner was sort of orange, you know, everything was orange on the roller banner. Recycle your cups in the orange bin, and then of the five, the paper cup bin was blue.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Oh no. If you had have just taken that orange bin instruction, you would have stuck it in the wrong one. Was there an orange bin at all?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Confusingly, the orange bin was for plastic cans, paper and card. So actually, if you read the roller banner, you'd put your coffee cup in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Ah there's a dedicated paper cup bin that isn't that. So don't include it in the paper and card.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

As as there always should be. Go back to our paper cup episode if you want to know why. So I happen to know that this roller banner and bins are done by Hubub because it's part of In the Loop. So I got in contact with Alex, who was our interview for episode 15, I believe. And he said, This is odd. I got my best people on the case, and this is what they came back with. We did introduce Inverloop at Oxford Welcome Break, but it looks like they've updated the bin colours since then. So our banner no longer corresponds to the cup bin colour. I'll email our contact at welcome break to flag this and suggest they either update the mention on the banner to blue bin or just remove the banner. So it looks like it was an update where someone didn't clot the incoherence. We'll see if we can get it fixed. How cool's this? Talking rubbish, making a difference. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Action, leading to action, using our contacts to make sure that these uh these bins make it easy for people to recycle.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

That's great. Exactly. And Rebecca responded saying, wow, great that some bin spotting might lead to an improvement. So this is this is gonna be great. Now, Hubbub know as well as I do that roller banner has some carbon associated with it. So they either need to take it away and use it in a place where there is an orange bin or we need to reword it. But don't just destroy the banner. We need to make sure that doesn't happen. Those guys won't do that. So if anyone's going through Oxford Service Station, have a look out. And if you if the roller banner's gone, let me know. And if the roller banner's been updated, let me know because I'd love to report back. As always, we'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organization looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurety.com. And the best thing you can do to help us grow, well, there's two things you can do actually. You can tell people about talking rubbish. We just need to remind people that it would be really nice if they told their friends about us. But other than that, you can also leave a review, and if you do, you might end up being Robbie's reviewer of the week.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, so this one comes in from Steve, it's a five-star review, and he says, Been listening to this from the start and hugely enjoying it. I've learned lots from two very knowledgeable hosts who are also funny. They deal with specific topics on most episodes, so you can just dip into one or two episodes if you're so inclined. But I find the whole thing fascinating, even when they discuss pets or children, neither of which I have. Keep 'em coming.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Imagine a life with no pets or children, Rob 8.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Tranquil. We're gonna call him Tranquil Steve. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Now this review is actually a couple of months old because it's on Podcast Addict.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Oh, that's a new one on me.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Oh well, I checked them all, but I did not realise on Podcast Addicts you can review. So, Steve, I'm really sorry we missed this, and thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Let's hope he's still listening. I mean, it sounds like he will be.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Oh, definitely. And I need to give a double thanks because podcast addict is actually what my in-laws use to listen to this. So now they will believe me when I say it's not just them listening.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Oh yeah, thanks, Steve. You're really making James look good with his in-laws. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I really appreciate it. Thank you. You can follow us at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. Also join our Discord as you can hear. It's where we get a lot of information from, and it's the easiest way to engage with us and send us pictures of bins. The link to all those things is in the show notes, as is the link to our petition, which is about banning the word compostable on dog poo bags which can't be composted. If you have a second, please go and sign that. Rubbish or not. Today we're discussing buzzballs. This is because I have seen so many of them out and about this summer. Everywhere I look, there's a little buzzball. So if you don't know what this is, it's like a little plastic fishbowl. That's how I'm going to describe it. Like a bauble shape on a Christmas tree. Yeah, ballball shape. Yeah, I'd go with that. With a aluminium top secured to it. So a plastic bauble with like an aluminium can top. Now we talked about this before, I think, in our introduction of our black plastic episode. Robbie, you were talking about a plastic can that had an aluminium top. This is basically the same thing, but because we just covered it in the intro and people may have missed that, I thought we would formalise it as a rubbish or not.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah, and these are slightly different and now, as you say, more prevalent, aren't they? It's like it's fully round. It doesn't have that aluminium bottom, does it? It's just at the top.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah, and because it's a so just to be clear, what's in this is a ready-to-drink cocktail, and I think that's why people are seeing them more and more. Because like, particularly on beaches, I've seen lots of litter picking where people are saying, God, these are everywhere on the beach. And people are obviously having a drink on the beach and they're leaving them behind.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And Buzzball is the brand, isn't it? Am I right in thinking? It is the brand, yes. Yeah, okay. So there might be some competitors who also use this packaging. But it seems like I mean, it's just a cocktail, isn't it, at the end of the day. And really they're leading their marketing with this novel-looking piece of packaging, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Before we go into the rubbish a lot, can I tell you what I found? Basically, I went into Costco to stock up on some alcohol for a party, and I went in and they had a giant buzzball, right? So it was massive. Like I don't know, one and a half litres or something. It was huge. Oh wow. Massive, but like uh football size, you know. Imagine it looked quite impressive. Yeah, I think it actually had a plastic lid, so it was okay. But um, it was better than the normal buzzballs. Anyway, that led me to think, okay, look up this Costco one. And I went on their website and in the description it said, the founder was inspired after seeing a snow globe and a tennis ball tube. Sometimes when people say they're inspired, it's like something made them do something charitable or different. I don't think you can say you were inspired by a tennis ball tube and a snow globe.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Whoever that founder is can be inspired by absolutely anything. Hats off to them. Inspired by nature, the flapping of a mockingbird's wings. Inspired by a tennis ball tube. Anyway, we've left it long enough. Robbie, rubbish or not? Rubbish. I hate these things. I think we're gonna have a competition between the two of us for who hates these things more. Yes. They are so bad, and it's just it really grinds my gears to think that people are still it's just a cocktail. You can have it in a can. You there's so many other ways in a in a bottle or whatever, but they just created this unrecyclable, difficult to manage packaging with two different materials in it because they're thinking about sales and sales alone and just totally inconsiderate of what's going to happen with this packaging at the end of its life.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, my favourite thing is on their website they say it's a hundred percent recyclable, but then they link you to a terracycle program. So again, it's that classic. We've set up a terracycle program, so this can be recycled. Hey, that terracycle program is only available in the US. And feel free to email me BuzzBalls if I've got this wrong, but I suspect gets a very small percentage of those back. And in the UK, there is no route for recycling these. There is no terracycle program. They're just going in the general bin. When you could be using an aluminium can or a plastic bottle, I don't care which you use, it would be so much better than this. So the packaging sins on this one, just so we can go through it. It's coloured plastic, which is just so annoying. The cocktails are coloured. You don't need to put coloured plastic around it. Like we've talked about that in Sabra's episode. It's a really, really pointless part of packaging.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

What? So as in the like kind of cola ones come in a like brownie black packaging, and the like strawberry-flavoured ones come in a red one. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Yeah, that's it. And it's two materials. So there's this question as to how a smurf will see it. So as we've described, a plastic bauble with an aluminium lid. I think a smurf will probably identify that as plastic, because it's going to get the bauble, not the top. I don't think the magnets are going to be I mean the magnets might pick out the aluminium lid, but the eddy current. Sorry, the eddy current, thank you. The eddy current might pick out the lid. But I suspect it's probably going to get sorted as plastic. But either way, it is going to affect recycling equipment. It's going to make life difficult for the recycler. They won't be able to recycle it. Interestingly, I mentioned they said it's 100% recyclable. I think that's just on their US website. They've actually deleted the FAQ page from their UK website, which talks about recyclability. So uh thank God for the Wayback Machine. I I use that to go back and see what their internet page used to look like. Uh you can't delete an FAQ page from me. So it said buzzballs are packaged in 100% recyclable materials, depending on your region's recycling practice, they may or may not require you to separate the material. And then they went on to talk about Terracycle. How are you going to separate the material on this? There is no region, in my opinion, in any country that will be happy with this mixed material. So the fact that they're saying, depending on your region's recycling practices, they may or may not require you to separate the material. They will 100% require you to separate the material. You can't do it, it's sealed together.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Just pop out your pocket knife and start cutting into this plastic th. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous, yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Anyway, let's move off this. Interestingly, my residual rubbish today could be a solution for this, but I'll leave that as a bit of a cliffhanger. Rubbish news. My rubbish news this week is something that has been going on for 12 years, something we've talked about a couple of times on this podcast. James Howes, the Bitcoin landfill man who threw away 8,000 Bitcoin into a Newport Landfill, has officially given up.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

Ah, poor guy.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

It's all over. What happened? Yeah, you were pretty supportive of him. So we talked about him in our landfill episode, which was episode 52. I should say on Discord as well, quite a lot of our waster slash influencers also wanted him to be able to get his hard drive back. So the coins are now worth more than 600 million. And to make matters worse, unfortunately, due to all the legal work he's done, he actually owes the council 117 grand in legal bills. Ooh, so that's gonna sting, isn't it? Well, it's actually this debt that has ended everything. I think we mentioned in our episode 52 that he'd offered to buy the landfill. The council are basically coming back and saying, Well, maybe you can buy the landfill, but you've got to settle your 117 grand debt first. And he's like, No, because the second I settle this 117 grand debt, you're gonna say, No, you can't buy the landfill. So he has called this financial coercion. Pretty strong words. I'm supportive of this guy, not as much as you are, but you know, I do get the council's point. It's like you over taxpayer 117 grand. Why are we going to do any more work with you until you've paid that? And he's saying, Well, I don't want to pay it because you're just gonna tell me that you don't want to do what I want to do. To solve his problem, to solve this money issue, he has announced plans to launch a new cryptocurrency called the Apologies in Advance to the World. Welsh Quinyog coin, I'm sorry if I've got that wrong this year to recoup some of the losses. So the name Quinyog, I've done it twice now, is um is Welsh for penny. So that's why he's gone with that word. Now I don't really understand this. He was like, I'm gonna launch my own cryptocurrency, and I'm pretty techie, but I don't get this. So he's saying the value of his lost wallet will back the new coin, but he can't get to his lost wallet, which is why he's using the new coin. So I don't know how the like I think he's saying if you buy my coin to the value of 600 million, then you know nothing can go wrong because I've got this crypto that we can all look at if it all goes wrong, but I can't get the crypto.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Basically, crypto is just running on people's faith, and he's trying to get some faith in himself to make this coin valuable.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, I think we said, didn't we say he was gonna do a documentary, I think, with Netflix? I thought we saw so maybe. Maybe he'll get enough publicity from that that people will back his coin. I wish him the best of luck, I'm sure you do as well, Robbie. Hopefully he gets enough money to settle those legal bills and make up for a bit of his losses. We said at the time, I cannot imagine throwing out 600 million pounds and being okay with it. Yeah. Distraught.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

So I've also got some news that's is it sad news? Maybe it's good news actually. Shine, the online fashion retailer, have received a one million euro fine, which is such great news that governments are finally taking note of their practices. This was in Italy. And if I say the words vague, generic, and or overly emphatic, I'm not talking about the feedback I get on my co-hosting skills. It's about what Italy's competition authority said about Shine. Vague, generic, overly emphatic. Does that ring any bells? And we are always saying that we think we've got a writer at The Guardian listening, and today we reciprocate, because this news came from The Guardian, where Italy's competition commission sort of said that there were these misleading or omissive claims, something that we've talked about previously on episodes of the podcast. And this was all related to their evolution roadmap. Interesting portmanteau they've put together there. But Shine's claims about being sort of circular and recycling were found to be either false or at least confusing. Now, one million euro fine, how much is that going to sting them? Maybe not very much. But this comes just a month after France's Directorate of Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention handed them a 40 million euro fine for deceptive commercial practices. So bad news for Shine. And why am I reveling in this so much? It's because fast fashion isn't held to account in the same way that, say, packaging producers are or those making consumer goods, electronics, etc. And it's really quite wrong that these fast fashion companies are getting away with it, so to speak. So brilliant to see that Italy and France are both taking action.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Rubbish question. Our question this week comes from John on LinkedIn. So thank you, John. John is actually a fellow podcaster. I'm gonna give him some free advertising here because he's just launched a podcast called How Do You Money? Not that we get paid for any of our advertising, Robbie. But yes, how do you money? So if you're interested in talking about money, I would check out John's podcast. And that is a thank you, John, for leaving a very good question on our LinkedIn. So when it comes to soft plastic packaging, most supermarkets offer to recycle that these days to save space, and John tends to fold them up into the little triangles that we used to do at school. His question was, does that help or hinder the recycling process? Now, this is really funny for me because literally I went to a brewery the other day with my friends. We got a bag of mini cheddars. This was way before this question was asked, and I was just folding it up, you know, playing with it, and someone said, Oh, you're going to turn it into one of those triangles. And I suddenly realized I'd completely forgotten how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

I quickly Googled the image and I did make one of these triangles, and I was like, Oh, great. And then I threw it in the soft plastic bin. So I'm worried that I need to unlearn very quickly how to make these triangles. Robbie, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I used to do this all the time too. And about maybe a year or so ago, I asked someone in the waste industry, Stuart Hayward Haim, he works at Suez in and knows lots about waste management and the process for sorting flexible plastics. And he said, No, you really do need to keep it like a flat packet of crisps. And at best, you know, it'll all be stuffed together, you could say, and it gets compacted down. But when the bag of soft plastic gets uh opened up, it's really important for it to all sort of fluff out, so to speak, and sort of rebound and bounce back. And if you've created one of those triangles, it simply isn't able to sort of pop out to a familiar-looking shape. So unfortunately, I used to love doing this. It was sort of mindful activity at the end of finishing some crisps or some mini cheddar, if that's your preferred snack. But yeah, no, I'm sorry, John. This is one of those things that you should stop doing, even though I know it's a little bit of fun once you've finished your snack.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

So this is something that has happened to us this week that makes us feel like an emoji. I'm gonna go with the confused emoji today. I popped out for lunch the other day, deliberately avoiding a sandwich and meal deal so that I did not get called out on this podcast again. And with my meal that I was dining in with Robbie, I ordered a can of Coke Zero. So that wasn't dined in. And I got to the till and the person serving me said, Would you like me to cut the lid off? What the heck? I know. I'm never gonna shy away from anything packaging related, so I was like, Yes, please. They had a machine that cut the lid off. Why?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Side note, this would be great for buzzballs. Ah, that was the trailer, yeah. Cut off the aluminium lid and you're left with some plastic on one and aluminium on the other.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

And I've put a picture there. I mean, you can see it. It's a very neat cut. It has left at the rim of the aluminium can, but like not sharp or anything. It looks like a cup. It's made my can into a cup, yeah. I will put a picture of this up on our stories, have a look at it. But I was like, why do you do this? And the guy just shrugged. And said, no, I'm gonna need more. I'm gonna wait here till you remember why you do this, because I can't go onto the podcast and just go, yeah, they just cut lids off cans. Get me the manager. Yeah, exactly. I need the manager immediately. Anyway, after a while discussing and thinking about it, it's because they do cocktails. So they do cocktails, you can order a cocktail, let's say, a rum and coke. And so what they will do is open the can by cutting the lid, as in fully cutting off the top, pour a little bit of the coke away. Ugh, I despaired a bit on that, you know, what's the point? And then they will add rum directly to the can. So other than the pouring a little bit away, which is a bit annoying, actually, this is pretty cool. This is a takeaway cup, ready-made takeaway cup. I mean, it would be better for them just to buy big bottles of whatever their mixer is and make it in a cup, like a reusable cup that people could take back or a glass or something. But I thought it was quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

That is crazy. I have never heard of that. You're gonna have to tell me offline where this place is, because I definitely want to go and see it for myself.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Feel like I should say it on the pod, but then Ellie's gonna say, You're on a diet, what the hell were you doing there? Let's hope Ellie has not made it this far into the podcast, but it was Girt Wings in Whopping Wolf.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Whoa, okay, that was very naughty. Delicious.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

I had a Coke Zero though, you know, to go with my wings of potato. I had a Coke Zero. So you tailor tatts. Take that, Ellie.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Okay, well, mine on a positive note, this one made me smile from ear to ear. And it actually builds on what we were talking about earlier, the bin spotters, because I read Jenny Garbis was someone who went into their local Leon takeaway food outlet, and she visits weekly and she asked a member of staff, why is there not a recycling bin here? This is strange, you know. There's a paper packet, cardboard box, etc. And there was a bit of a shrug of shoulders, just there isn't a recycling bin, sorry, from the member of staff. So she spoke to a friend and ended up doing a social media post that apparently was seen by like 50,000 people. Leon restaurants then saw the post and apologized and said they would look into it. Jenny then went back just three weeks later and they had introduced recycling bins. This is amazing, and just goes to show you've got to speak up when something isn't right because change can happen. She went back, there was a general waste bin that there was before, but then there was added to it a dry mix recycling bin for cans and bottles, etc., another bin for liquids for you to pour out any liquids you've not used, and then finally food waste, and they all of these bins had like familiar-looking iconography, so you could see what to put in which bin to. So they were pretty good looking bins as well. So well done, Jenny, and hopefully that's fuel for all of our binfluencers andor wasters to do something similar.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Very, very, very good. Thank you, Jenny. As always, thank you all for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. Thank you for the pictures of bins. Thank you for sorting bins out round the country. This is great. Let's continue doing amazing work. This is great. I'm not going to take any credit for what Jenny's done, but I will take some credit for the Oxford services. That it is incredible and we can make a difference. So keep sharing stuff with us so that we can make sure we go and check out anything that isn't quite right. Do that by joining our Discord, following us on social media at rubbishpodcast or emailing talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com, or you can WhatsApp us. Everything we have discussed today can be found on our link tree, and the details to all of those things I just mentioned are in the show notes. So just click through on the episode, you'll see a long list of links that you can use.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

And if you do just one thing for us this week, tell a friend A what you learnt today. Don't buy buzzballs, they're absolutely awful packaging. But secondarily, tell them where you found out and come and listen to Talking Rubbish.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

See you next bin day. Goodbye. Bye.