Plastic Fantastic?

Watch Video: Selena's plastic obsession comes to nothing >

As a committed recycler at home, Selena threw herself into the scavenging challenge more than anyone else: 'My main motivation for this is getting plastic off landscape, I don't care about how much money it is worth, I just care that it can be recycled.' Not everyone was convinced, but Selena was determined and by the time Ray arrived she had filled an entire skip full of plastic bottles.

Bad news from Ray

Ray didn't look impressed when he saw the skip, so Selena pleaded: 'It's taken me ages collecting this lot, you're going to tell me it is worth ?5 aren't you?' But Ray would not be persuaded: 'I wasn't going to say £5. As it is, it's worth nothing.' Ray explained that Selena hadn't segregated all the many different types of plastic, and she hadn't removed the labels or cleaned them.

Rob felt that Selena's effort had helped highlight a key problem. We recycle far more of our paper and glass than we do of our plastics, and part of the reason for that is that plastics are more complicated than other types of material. There are so many different types, and what's worse is that often different types of plastic are used by different manufacturers to do the same job. Which means, Rob explains: 'You can have three massive manufacturers using different types of plastic for shampoo bottles.'

Selena and Jermaine solve the problem

Jermaine, who admits he's not particularly interested in green issues, was also listening in and suggested: 'Couldn't the government say you have to use a certain type of plastic?' He then grins and asks if he is starting to sound more green. Rob says that at least he is beginning to ask questions, which is good.

After their conversation, Rob explains why this matters: 'Recycling relies on yield. The more of one particular material, the more value it's worth. So if you've got a skip full of mixed plastics, it's worth absolutely nothing. Now this presents a dilemma because a lot of manufacturers actually use very many different types of materials. For Jermaine and Selena the answer was simple: reduce the number of plastics in use and make recycling easier.