Recycling roadmap for flexible plastics launches

The report titled “The Future of Recycling Flexible Plastic Packaging in the UK” serves as a comprehensive blueprint outlining, for the first time, how flexible plastic packaging – such as food wrappers, films, and carrier bags – can be efficiently collected and recycled at a reasonable cost.

Source: Mondelez United Kingdom

This report emerges from the three-year FlexCollect project, which tested various collection and processing methods for flexible plastic packaging across ten local authorities and 160,000 households in England. Spearheaded by Ecosurety, SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK, RECOUP, and WRAP, and sponsored by the Flexible Plastic Fund (FPF), a partnership among major food and consumer goods manufacturers, this initiative marks the largest trial of its kind in the UK, successfully collecting over 400 tonnes of flexible plastics – equivalent to more than 50 million bread bags.

Key Findings

• The trial demonstrated that collecting flexible plastic packaging could be relatively simple when integrated with existing local authority recycling efforts.
• Households involved in the trial expressed satisfaction, with 89% reporting contentment with the new system, which allowed them to add flexible plastics to easily identifiable colored bags for collection.
• Once gathered and sorted, the flexible plastics were recycled into various products, including new plastic bags and plastic timber items like fences and benches.

Despite these promising results indicating that collection, sorting, and public engagement are feasible, the lack of UK-based recycling infrastructure poses a significant challenge for the future. The report emphasizes the need for increased investment in domestic reprocessing capabilities and the establishment of stable markets for recycled flexible plastic packaging.

FlexCollect has shown that collecting flexible plastic packaging from people’s homes is not only possible – it’s popular, efficient, and scalable. This report is the result of years of hard work by our partners and marks a big step forward in how the UK can deal with flexible plastic. But this is only the beginning – the Flexible Plastic Fund is already preparing its next major project to help make recycling this material happen on a much bigger scale.

^{Gareth Morton, FPF representative and Discovery Manager at Ecosurety}

The FlexCollect project is funded by FPF members, including Mars UK, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Abel & Cole, Eat Real, Ella’s Kitchen, Kiddylicious, Koninklijke Douwe Egberts, KP Snacks, Lotus Bakeries, McCain Foods, Natural Balance Foods, Ocado Retail, pladis, Proper Snacks, The Collective, and Vitaflo. It also receives support from Defra, UK Research & Innovation’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge led by Innovate UK, along with Ecosurety, RECOUP, WRAP, and Zero Waste Scotland. The project delivery team includes Ecosurety, SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK, RECOUP, and WRAP.