The project is to be run by the British Plastics Federation's Recycling Council and will be supported by the Department of Trade and Industry.
It is expected that the project will have two main aspects of work. The first will be to draw up a set of standards for recyclers or the collectors of plastic waste, an area where there is currently a lack of definitions. The second will be aimed at helping reprocessors by producing standards which can be applied to material that they purchase from collectors.
The plastics reprocessing sector, which typically granulates collected recycled bottles or film, is seen as already being used to working to tight specifications for the material it produces. But, because of the lack of a grading system at the start of the chain this can hamper the onward use of material.
Work on the project should be completed in early 2003 and will also be show to CEN the European Standards organisation. The UK project will have the involvement of the National Physics Laboratory which is a participant in CEN.
Funding for the standards work is also expected to come from Biffaward with support from metals recycler European Metal Recycling and computer company ICL.
The work on domestic waste is one of three standards project either underway or starting soon. The plastics industry materials organisation, Valuplast, is currently running a study trying to work out how much plastics waste there is and where it is. And, the British Plastics Federation's automotive group is also looking at specific standards for the use of recycled plastic in vehicles.
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