A British waste firm that has contracts to recycle the plastic waste of two major supermarkets last year mislabelled the type of plastic it exported to Turkey, avoiding national restrictions, it has emerged, leading to questions about where the UK’s plastic ends up.
E&T can reveal that Eurokey Recycling - which has contracts with both Tesco and Sainsbury’s - had its export permit suspended in November 2021 by the Environment Agency (EA), following several breaches of regulations in the way it exported plastic waste to sites not only in Turkey but also in Poland and the Netherlands.
Greenpeace said the news was “extremely concerning” and called on the UK government to “urgently ban all plastic waste exports and stop our plastic mess being dumped on other countries”.
Both Tesco and Sainsbury’s have said they are aware of the breaches and that they are in close contact with Eurokey. Eurokey says the suspension was the result of a series of administrative...