OPINION: ‘UK is at a critical turning point for plastic packaging recycling’

OPINION: A total of 1506kt (51%) of the 2,970kt plastic packaging manufactured and imported in the UK in 2025/26 had 30% or more recycled content. This was 1,290kt (38%) of the total in 2022/23, so an increase of 216,000 tonnes in that time. The environmental aim of the tax was to incentivise the use of recycled content in plastic packaging and develop the infrastructure in the UK to produce this material, and with the domestic recycling infrastructure in continuous decline it is likely the intended circular economy benefits of the tax is actually being realised in other countries.

The RECOUP and Ecosurety White Paper, ‘UK plastic packaging recycling infrastructure: recommendations for circularity’, that was published in March 2026 outlined that the UK is at a critical turning point for plastic packaging recycling. The paper showed that current operational reprocessing capacity only covers around 23% of what is needed to recycle all plastic packaging placed on the market.

The research confirms that without intervention, the UK risks losing the majority of its remaining plastic reprocessing infrastructure by 2030. Over 200,000 tonnes of capacity have already been lost since 2024 due to volatile markets, policy uncertainty and high operational costs. However, if the right steps are taken now, the UK can build a resilient recycling system that supports domestic jobs, reduces reliance on exports, strengthens supply chains and accelerates progress towards a circular economy.

It called on the UK Government to adopt a number of recommendations, with four primary areas of action:

1. Strengthening material verification and transparency.
2. Create stronger and more consistent demand for recycled content.
3. Provide greater investment and policy support for innovation.
4. Targeted operational support.

There will also be an impact of impact of drinks containers in the Deposit Return System (DRS). RECOUP member Enviroo produced its own White Paper about the current and future capacity for food grade PET reprocessing within the UK and how the Deposit Return Scheme and Investment Grade policy can stimulate the domestic food grade rPET industry. The DRS has potential to starve non-bottle PET markets of recycled content, and RECOUP continues to do work in this area about how the recycled content gap can be solved.

Concerns about fraudulent claims of recycled content are still being raised with HMT and RECOUP maintain a verification system funded by the tax would more than cover its own cost through increased revenue, and support UK suppliers at the same time. However, the ideal environmental aim should be to retire the PPT as a standalone regulatory mechanism and incentivise the use of recycled content through packaging EPR alongside aligning recycled content thresholds with those set out under the EU’s Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR).

A £250 million tonne annual revenue would enable the UK to recycle all its plastic packaging waste domestically, stop the need to export for recycling and realise significant environmental and economic benefits in a transformation of domestic capacity including job creation and retention, technology advancements and being the world leaders the tax had some intention to achieve.