Monday, July 31, 2023
Going up in flames
So where is that PPE the UK Government spent billions of pounds on during the pandemic? Well. according to the Mirror, NHS-owned PPE worth at least £225 million which never made it to the UK has been burned in China, releasing nearly 6,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere:
Analysis found incinerating the mountain of plastic-laced equipment would have pumped out as much carbon as the electricity consumption of 3,750 UK households for a year.
The UK ordered more than 30 billion items of protective-wear when the pandemic struck - with hundreds of millions of items coming from firms in China. But more than half a billion items never left China - and were still in storage at the end of last year.
As of September, “the majority” of the stockpile had not expired, and were “suitable for use in health and social care settings.” But the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said they had “sufficient stock in the UK” to meet remaining demand, and that the items were “surplus to requirements.”
While the government donated around 50 million gowns, masks and gloves held in China to other countries - there were still 589 million items in storage in the country in September last year. Since then, nearly all of that stockpile has been incinerated in a bid to reduce the eye-watering cost of renting storage space overseas.
Even assuming all the items were masks at their current value, which is much lower than during the pandemic, the stockpile burned since September would have been worth at least £225 million. That’s enough to pay the salaries of nearly 8,000 newly qualified nurses for a year.
Angela Rayner, Labour ’s Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “This Government has spent a fortune in taxpayers’ money, purchasing, storing and incinerating mountains of unused kit which never has and never will reach UK soil. The eye-watering waste of this bonfire of useless PPE is staggering.”
Most single-use PPE is made from a variety of plastics, including polypropylene, polyethylene and vinyl. For every tonne of dense plastic burned, more than two tonnes of CO2 is released.
Official figures show £6.8 million was spent with a single company - Kuehne and Nagel - in the last year for warehousing PPE in China. As of December, the firm was storing 118 million items - just a fifth of the total stockpile in the country. And as recently as March, the UK was still spending £215,786 a week to store surplus items in China.
The scandal continues.
Analysis found incinerating the mountain of plastic-laced equipment would have pumped out as much carbon as the electricity consumption of 3,750 UK households for a year.
The UK ordered more than 30 billion items of protective-wear when the pandemic struck - with hundreds of millions of items coming from firms in China. But more than half a billion items never left China - and were still in storage at the end of last year.
As of September, “the majority” of the stockpile had not expired, and were “suitable for use in health and social care settings.” But the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said they had “sufficient stock in the UK” to meet remaining demand, and that the items were “surplus to requirements.”
While the government donated around 50 million gowns, masks and gloves held in China to other countries - there were still 589 million items in storage in the country in September last year. Since then, nearly all of that stockpile has been incinerated in a bid to reduce the eye-watering cost of renting storage space overseas.
Even assuming all the items were masks at their current value, which is much lower than during the pandemic, the stockpile burned since September would have been worth at least £225 million. That’s enough to pay the salaries of nearly 8,000 newly qualified nurses for a year.
Angela Rayner, Labour ’s Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “This Government has spent a fortune in taxpayers’ money, purchasing, storing and incinerating mountains of unused kit which never has and never will reach UK soil. The eye-watering waste of this bonfire of useless PPE is staggering.”
Most single-use PPE is made from a variety of plastics, including polypropylene, polyethylene and vinyl. For every tonne of dense plastic burned, more than two tonnes of CO2 is released.
Official figures show £6.8 million was spent with a single company - Kuehne and Nagel - in the last year for warehousing PPE in China. As of December, the firm was storing 118 million items - just a fifth of the total stockpile in the country. And as recently as March, the UK was still spending £215,786 a week to store surplus items in China.
The scandal continues.
