What's next for plastics?

00;00;00;14 - 00;00;20;10

Speaker 1

And welcome to our link to a live broadcast. My name is Martin Fuller and this is the second of a series of live conversations we are having about ecological transformation here on LinkedIn. Veolia is a world leader in driving the changes needed for the ecological transformation we need to experience in many of the facets of our modern life now.

 

00;00;20;12 - 00;00;44;28

Speaker 1

Plus we're taking a look at first in this series is something that surrounds us. It is, according to some recent studies, literally everywhere, including inside us. So following on from my conversation with Tom McBeath for RECOUPED last month. Today I'm joined by a plastic expert from within Veolia. Tom Coleman, General manager for treatment. Tom, over to you. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your areas of expertise?

 

00;00;45;16 - 00;01;10;08

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thank you, Martin. Yeah, my son has been in this industry for over 20 years. My current role as general manager, the treatment has me as responsible for our plastics business that we operate in Beckenham. But I have a wider portfolio that also includes composting, landfill, hazardous soils recovery. So it's a very broad spectrum of operations.

 

00;01;10;08 - 00;01;16;04

Speaker 2

But hence I'm here today to speak about them all and perhaps most passionate about which is our recycling operations.

 

00;01;17;00 - 00;01;48;13

Speaker 1

That's fabulous. Yeah. Always been one of the exciting places to visit when we're doing our visits around the business. I diagnose the sites. I'm always keen to get to and it follows on nicely from what we were talking about with recoup in the clothes, the plastic packaging tax. The facility at Dagenham is really important in that whole story and the whole story indeed of the circular economy and how we can adapt to a more sustainable attitude towards plastics.

 

00;01;49;08 - 00;01;58;06

Speaker 1

First, can I ask you to tell us all a little bit more about that, the Dagenham facility and what takes place there and how it contributes to Veolia? Sustainable Girls.

 

00;01;59;24 - 00;02;23;02

Speaker 2

Dagenham is a plastics processing facility, so it is very simple. We take in between 14 and 15,000 tonnes of natural HTP and for most people they will recognize that as milk bottles. So a quick statistic for you, that's about 500 million milk bottles every single year.

 

00;02;23;15 - 00;02;24;07

Speaker 1

500 million.

 

00;02;24;17 - 00;02;31;26

Speaker 2

500 million. I did have some statistics for how many pellets come out the back end, but I couldn't find that piece of paper this morning. But if you.

 

00;02;32;04 - 00;02;34;25

Speaker 1

Look at the piece of paper, the euro, that number down.

 

00;02;36;10 - 00;03;07;04

Speaker 2

And the process there is a continuation of what happens from where the material is sorted into its polymers. So we received that material there. It goes through additional sorting and reprocessing. And then starts a journey of separation, cleaning, granulation with the final output being the extrusion of the plastic pellet. The big difference for Dagenham that perhaps makes us different to others is that this is a food grade output facility.

 

00;03;07;04 - 00;03;34;28

Speaker 2

So the focus at Dagenham is more about the quality of input. And so we work incredibly hard on the material that we're sourcing, but in essence, it is a bottle to bottle facility. So it's, you know, predominantly milk bottles in and milk bottles out or the feedstock to make milk bottles out. Well, what Veolia doesn't do is do the conversion from pellet to bottle, but we rely on our customer base to do that.

 

00;03;36;04 - 00;04;05;27

Speaker 1

That's fabulous. And it's great to think that the milk bottle you're using is probably the same milk bottle. You used that statistic about the Thames and the water you drink in England and it's been through how many other fridges that milk bottle has been in in its lifetime. And that said, I think it is quite unique, almost not not too unique, but it's different in the waste industry, in the plastics recycling, I guess that we're so focused on food grade specification.

 

00;04;06;19 - 00;04;28;23

Speaker 2

I think that from an education perspective, I think, you know, if you're trying to share knowledge, you know, it's a perfect example of how something that you place in your bin at the curbside is delivered back to you ultimately in a matter of weeks. And it's the same form and it's an exceptionally good news story.

 

00;04;29;08 - 00;04;40;19

Speaker 2

And something that Veolia is incredibly proud of and I'm personally very proud of. But from an education perspective, you can't get better because it's tangible and I think that's quite critical.

 

00;04;41;15 - 00;05;01;15

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And I guess it's a leading edge in a sense there is dignity in terms of how it's doing this, in terms of the plastic circular economy. So do we constantly have to keep evolving and investing in the system by investing in the process and the infrastructure to stay ahead of the curve?

 

00;05;01;28 - 00;05;33;03

Speaker 2

But I think at this stage of the process, you simply cannot afford to sit still. Veolia will continue to invest in all of our plastics facilities because we've got to meet the demands. As I touched on earlier, this is a food grade output. So the requirements on us from a certification point of view are far greater than they are for a non-food grade producer, you know, and that links back to the quality of input that gives us the quality of output that you simply cannot afford to sit still.

 

00;05;33;19 - 00;05;50;17

Speaker 2

You know, if anything that's happened in the last five years, is that, you know, we've probably spent ten years on quite a slow, steady journey. But within the last five years, you know, we put it in fifth gear and we're moving at a much, much greater pace than we ever have, ever have.

 

00;05;51;10 - 00;06;11;00

Speaker 1

I think that's definitely my mind, the experience I have and the interpretation I take. So looking at the UK plastic market to start and maybe we expand out a little wider into Europe and the globe later in the conversation. But what sort of impact has the Dagenham facility had on the UK market? Does it have an impact?

 

00;06;11;00 - 00;06;11;11

Speaker 1

Is it?

 

00;06;12;06 - 00;06;39;01

Speaker 2

Yeah, fundamentally, as I said earlier, there aren't that many business units or facilities doing what we do. So actually we have almost one facility that has the ability to create its own market and again, the demand for food grade is diminishing. So actually that makes us different. The reason being is the other reprocess is dictating. They need food grade.

 

00;06;40;07 - 00;07;06;03

Speaker 2

In essence, we're creating our own market for that food grade material. So even one operation in isolation can have a combination of destabilising and stabilising almost in the same process. As far as what's happening in the UK market and ultimately what the UK wants to try and achieve from a circular economy perspective around the types of facilities that we have.

 

00;07;07;12 - 00;07;33;11

Speaker 1

I'm having one of those lightbulb moments. Well, I got something now. So in plastic packaging tax, we are talking about 30% of the plastic that needs to be made of or sourced from a recyclable source, not virgin. When you're saying food grade plastic, what we're saying here is that obviously if you are making a plastic bottle or you're making one of those trays for fresh meat, that has to be food grade.

 

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Speaker 1

It can't just be any plastic. That can't be plastic that's engineered to a quality. Yeah. Yes.

 

00;07;39;25 - 00;07;56;16

Speaker 2

Yes. So that the dairy industry dictates, as you would expect, you know, it's a food storage product. So it's in essence the 30% that the dairy industry has to find is not 30% of the total mass, it's 30% of the food grade that's produced every year.

 

00;07;58;06 - 00;08;16;13

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of processing that has to take place maybe. And how if we were looking at our supply chain then for the plastics that you take it to, is it just you take you to the gate and you start there or does that specification go further upstream from where you saw your materials?

 

00;08;16;22 - 00;08;39;22

Speaker 2

Yeah, so we work incredibly hard on the sourcing. There are restrictions on the type of material that you can source. Anybody who's in the plastics industry knows that you live and die by the yield that you produce, which is fundamentally how much comes in and how much comes out. The other end because of process losses and for food grade, that's even more challenging.

 

00;08;40;26 - 00;09;08;09

Speaker 2

Just some headline figures there. The quantity of food grade going in to achieve the certification that we have has to be near is down to a pure food grade in order to get food grade out. And that's what that's the requirement for us as a business. So if we receive something through the front gate, 85% food grade, we have to do further processing to get it to the 97, 98, 99% before it goes into the process.

 

00;09;08;29 - 00;09;12;16

Speaker 1

And I look at things differently.

 

00;09;12;16 - 00;09;47;23

Speaker 2

Yeah. And that changes the way that we source materials. So we're now talking to customers within the wider Veolia business customers that we're servicing for their water needs, for their collection needs, for the recycling needs. And as I touched on earlier, we're closing the loop for them. You know, ultimately we've got uses of milk bottles if we pick coffee chains, you know, restaurants and those sorts of things that we're closing the link between what we're collecting as a business and bringing that back to a facility that does something with it.

 

00;09;48;02 - 00;10;09;04

Speaker 2

So it's certainly that we're cutting out the middleman and saying, go straight back, coffee. Thank you very much, because we know we have an origin and we have comfort about where it's coming from with no intervention. And that's coming back into our business. And again, that's been a shift change in the last 2 to 3 years to make sure that we stick with the quality that we're producing.

 

00;10;09;20 - 00;10;37;09

Speaker 1

I get you, really. It's a long way from that image of the waste industry, the recycling industry. It's technical, it's highly engineered. It's and you can see the impact of us having food grade money. Sorry, a manufacturer who needs food grade quality plastic material needs to have this in their supply chain. They can't just say go to the market and sell me some plastic.

 

00;10;37;09 - 00;10;50;21

Speaker 1

It doesn't work that way. Yeah so you know really here key and obvious that Veolia opening up that specification and driving the circular economy to achieve what society needs I guess.

 

00;10;51;01 - 00;11;16;16

Speaker 2

And I think and this is what's potentially on the horizon in the near future that actually we're specifying the outputs from Murphy based on their end use. You know they were Murphy will produce a variety of different polymers and they would go off to be processed. And I think remembering the plastics tax means that all packaging producers have to meet that requirement.

 

00;11;16;16 - 00;11;39;22

Speaker 2

So and that's everyone. So the demand is increasing. So then it's about almost deciding what the end use is at the point of collection there. I said that you're saying, right, we need to stick with the quality agenda from start to finish. So part of the collection is affected. The type of processing is affected so that we're matching the end market.

 

00;11;40;15 - 00;11;44;14

Speaker 2

And I think that will become more critical as we move down a long journey.

 

00;11;44;28 - 00;12;01;09

Speaker 1

I think you can see that. You can see that and I can hear, hear in your voice a real passion for this subject. So has living in breathing this job for as long as you have and as he challenged you, you know how you feel about sustainability in the circular economy?

 

00;12;02;06 - 00;12;31;07

Speaker 2

I think I would say, yes. You know, it's no, I'm still doing it. You know, I'm incredibly enthusiastic about it. I'm very fortunate within the Valley team that we have equally passionate people. I touched on it earlier. This is easy you know, these are 24 hour day operations and they work most of the time. But if anybody says that they work all the time, that's rubbish, you know, but they're equally as passionate.

 

00;12;31;09 - 00;12;53;19

Speaker 2

And I think this is, I suppose a bit of me rubs off on them and etcetera, etcetera. And I'm very fortunate in that respect. The team down at Dagenham is fantastic but they're presented with numerous challenges and those challenges change week in, week out. You know, from my perspective, I've got three young children. You know, I come home to them what's good and what's not.

 

00;12;54;03 - 00;13;26;28

Speaker 2

And I've done a selection of presentations to a variety of different people over the years, the usual around What can I put in my bed and not put in my bin? But again, it links back to what I was saying. You know, a milk bottle to a milk bottle is tangible. You know, let's say 99% of the UK population will know what a milk bottle is because they're using it, you know, and I think the reality is if you can say to someone, I'm guaranteeing what goes in your bin comes back to you in 2 to 3 weeks time, you know, it's moving away from those mistruths.

 

00;13;27;09 - 00;13;48;28

Speaker 2

You know, there's a lot of negative perception around plastics within the media, you know, and and and, you know, to a certain extent, it's understandable. Bad news travels a lot faster than good news. But it's you know, there is a huge amount of work going on within organisations like Veolia and part of its ecological transformation to get to that better place.

 

00;13;49;19 - 00;14;16;03

Speaker 2

You know, we're changing the marketing strategy that we have with the evolution of plastic and which international marketing strategy about the types of polymers that we're producing everywhere, you know, not just in the UK, you know, value is an international organisation and I think we're getting some joined up thinking this is what I was saying about the journey speeding up because the place is is is ramping up incredibly quickly.

 

00;14;17;15 - 00;14;36;28

Speaker 1

I think it needs to you know, again, ecological transformation is one of those words that I think is used more inside our business than outside of the moment. But I'm always struck by one of the strap lines of the ecological transition. We couldn't do it well. It's too slow. We have to transform.

 

00;14;37;09 - 00;15;06;20

Speaker 1

And clearly, you know, thank you for the work you and your team are doing to transform the circular economy. So plastics, it's the last 15 minutes have taught me things and I'm inside the company. So thank you for sharing that with us. Can I ask you one more question that is so fabulous that we'd be doing what we're doing and great love this tangibility to yes that bottle will come back to you in two weeks time.

 

00;15;06;20 - 00;15;23;01

Speaker 1

It really does make the circular economy real, but what thing we need to do now to adapt to a more even more circular economy, an even greater circularity, and minimise the resale to use of virgin materials. What has to happen?

 

00;15;23;27 - 00;15;51;15

Speaker 2

Is there a combination of carrot and stick plastics? Taxpayers, you stick. And there's no denying that that has changed the way that, you know, the UK economy is thinking about what it's doing with plastics. I think there's further incentives that can be put there from a legislative point of view. But then there's the carrot, which is all about education.

 

00;15;51;15 - 00;16;26;07

Speaker 2

I said about mistruths. You know, there's a lot of misinterpretation about what goes on and frustration. I think what Veolia is having to do and what our competitors will have to do is that we're being challenged with finding suitable solutions for a wide range of polymers or plastics that hit the market. And again, I think in the next 5 to 10 years, you will see, you know, the operation of businesses that we wouldn't have thought possible, you know, around what we can achieve because the demand is there and it's driven by consumer demand and quite rightly so.

 

00;16;26;07 - 00;16;33;19

Speaker 2

You know, we as a business want to provide the services that both our customers want, but also the general public is expecting some.

 

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;55;27

Speaker 1

Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you. We've got a couple of questions. Come in and we'll get to those questions maybe offline if we run out of time. I'm aware of the restrictions we've got there, but one and it's going to call on your wider experience. I think I would like to bring up it links nicely to what you just said there, and that's talking about a use of plastic that I'm aware of.

 

00;16;58;00 - 00;17;16;18

Speaker 1

And that's in terms of clinical waste, single use plastics within the clinical environment. Is there an option to treat clinical plastic waste so that it's not handled as general waste? Because obviously there's the toxicology issues here. Are you aware of any developments there?

 

00;17;18;13 - 00;17;51;12

Speaker 2

We've talked about this for a fairly long period of time. And I think when I started this conversation around food grade two, food grade, in essence, we are governed by the legislation that sits behind this and what we can achieve. So arguably, the legislation has to match the demand. So I would fully agree and fully support that there has to be a solution for clinical bone plastics because the volume is enormous and we are very conscious of that, I think.

 

00;17;51;22 - 00;18;14;02

Speaker 2

But there needs to be a robust system that sits behind that. You know, arguably Veolia will be going off in one direction. But we need to stay parallel with what you know, the legislation is suggesting and what the wider industry is demanding. But yes, clinical at some point in time will have to be treated exactly the same.

 

00;18;14;02 - 00;18;35;23

Speaker 1

So I thank you for that insight. So we have to end with the big question, the big question, which requires probably a drumroll the most the question that you mentioned, you do talks. I speak to people regularly at dinner parties. I mean, it's like a Yorkshireman might be exposed to a dinner party if I'm ever invited to someone's house for a barbecue.

 

00;18;35;26 - 00;18;37;27

Speaker 1

Should we say dinner parties?

 

00;18;37;27 - 00;18;41;21

Speaker 2

I say friends round for dinner.

 

00;18;41;21 - 00;18;51;07

Speaker 1

But when they come around, the question that I'm sure we get asked a lot. Caps on all caps off when you recycle a plastic bottle.

 

00;18;51;21 - 00;18;52;06

Speaker 2

Caps on.

 

00;18;52;22 - 00;18;53;10

Speaker 1

Caps on.

 

00;18;56;16 - 00;19;15;00

Speaker 2

What? All that links back to the fact that we have a facility that accommodates the caps because the caps have value. So I would rather see the caps arriving at Dagenham if I was going to give one piece of advice for milk bottles, though, if I'm allowed to place, it's the film on the top, so leave the cap, leave the bottle.

 

00;19;15;25 - 00;19;21;29

Speaker 2

But if you can do your very best to remove the aluminium around the top, that would be my dream. Thank you.

 

00;19;22;08 - 00;19;58;06

Speaker 1

Okay, so the entirety of LinkedIn is now being told to leave the cap on, will get rid of that oil, please. We'll recycle that into the stream. Tom, thank you. That was a great conversation. I've enjoyed myself. I always enjoy a conversation with you and I'm looking forward to the next. Well, thank you for those insights and I hope everybody enjoyed it and I would like to invite you all to join us again in a few weeks, on June the seventh, when I'm going to be talking to Kevin DAVIES, procurement director, and Daniel Kane, responsible business manager, about ecological transformation and sustainable supply chains.

 

00;19;58;10 - 00;20;00;04

Speaker 1

Thank you for your time, everybody. Goodbye.