00:00Do you know what happens to your plastic waste once you've put in the recycling bin?
00:03Well, only 17% actually gets recycled.
00:07The rest is unrecyclable and gets incinerated or sent to landfill or even exported out of the country.
00:14And I'm in the only room in the entire world that turns this into sustainable aviation fuel.
00:21In the UK, enough plastic waste is sent to landfill to fill up 450,000 double-decker buses each year.
00:29So Clean Planet Technologies has opened what they say is the world's first facility to turn non-recyclable plastics into
00:37sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.
00:40The plastics which are problematic for the mechanical recycling today are the ones actually used in food packaging.
00:46Carrier bags, films, all those types of loose light plastics, they just simply can't be processed in traditional mechanical recycling
00:55facilities like a plastic bottle can.
00:57So the UK mandate says that we have to use the plastics that can't otherwise be recycled.
01:05So what's really nice about that policy is that we're not challenging the current recycling system,
01:10we're complementing it by taking the 80% of plastics that we can't otherwise recycle.
01:14In a multi-step process, this facility heats those plastics in an anti-oxygen chamber to produce a fuel for
01:21aeroplanes.
01:22By using plastic that's already produced, Clean Planet Technologies say they cut most of the carbon-intensive steps involved in
01:30making fuel.
01:31But could waste-to-fuel schemes actually end up fueling plastic production instead?
01:36We're not against plastic as a material. This is a very valuable material. It helps transport food and medicine around
01:44the world.
01:45It runs our hospitals more efficiently. The problem with plastic is what we do when it comes to the end
01:50of its life, what we do as a waste.
01:53This effort is part of a wider government aim to decarbonise aviation fuel.
01:57So by 2030, 10% of all jet fuel used in flight to leave in the UK must come from
02:05SAF.
02:05But the company says while it's feasible, it will be challenging.
02:10What we're aiming to do is to add our quota to meeting that target.
02:16But without exploring more non-conventional feedstock like plastic waste, I don't see that happening.
02:23I don't see that target being met pretty easily.
02:26The opening ceremony celebrated the steps towards decarbonisation.
02:31And with fossil fuel reliance decreasing year on year, will the UK actually meet its 2030 decarbonisation targets?
02:39Nayla Mahamud for KMTV in Sandwich.
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