Vinyl from signs and banners, vehicle wraps, foam board, laminated paper and card products, tempered glass and contaminated packaging by and large end up in landfill sites. Some non-recyclable waste such as contaminated paper and card products can go into a waste-to-energy facility where energy is generated from incinerating the waste in a power plant.

Finding alternatives is fraught with problems as the nature of traditional materials means they simply don’t have the same effect. A building wrap could use canvas while vinyl banners could be replaced by printed cotton, but vinyl-based vehicle wraps are impossible to replace unless you return to traditional paint applied by hand.

Banners, signs and hoardings are often only used for a limited period so finding alternatives is difficult, although fibre board made from recycled wood fibre is perfectly serviceable such as the ones made by The Stocksigns Group in Surrey. Paper and card are set for a comeback as plastic stirrers, straws and shop carrier bags fall out of favour while composable polywrap should replace much of the disposable plastic wrapping used in the direct mail industry such as the potato starch material made by bakergoodchild while honeywrap made from beeswax is another alternative. Hessian, muslin, wicker, raffia, linen, canvas and cotton have their uses as materials for wrapping and containing products as well as opening up new alternative markets in the environmentally friendly industries.

What do you think? Email your thoughts to harry@linkpublishing.co.uk or call me on Tel: 0117 9805 040 – or follow me on Twitter and join in the debate.