Led by compliance scheme Ecosurety in partnership with environmental charity Hubbub, the Flexible Plastic Fund will work to make the hard-to-recycle material more valuable to recycle by giving it a “stable value”.
The fund will set a minimum price of £100 per tonne of recycled product, which will “incentivise recyclers to process the material”.
It was launched in collaboration with the manufacturers Mars, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, Pepsico and Unilever.
Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have already signed up to support the initiative by hosting flexible plastic collection points in selected stores across the UK and several other major retailers are set to follow suit.
Fund
The scheme will work by trying to get as many businesses as possible who use flexible packaging to invest in the fund to become partners. Participating retailers then host flexible packaging collection points in store where the material can be dropped off for recycling.
The material will then be “tracked as it’s collected and transported to an approved recycler”, where it will be turned into products including non-food grade plastic, non-food-grade film and food-grade film.
These products can then generate PRNs, according to Ecosurety, and “if the recycling reaches our high standards”, the Flexible Plastic Fund pays for the PRNs which are passed on to partners to meet their obligations.
Investment
With the price set at £100 per tonne, Ecosurety said this should “motivate investment” in infrastructure and jobs to make flexible plastic recycling a “financially sustainable system” in the UK.
The fund will work in collaboration with a series of retailers, such as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, which have supported the initiative by rolling out flexible plastic collection points in selected stores.
This in turn will make the recycling of the material “increasingly accessible” to consumers.
“We hope that by boosting this infrastructure, government and local authorities will be motivated to quickly facilitate flexible plastic recycling in the UK”
‘Motivated’
Robbie Staniforth head of innovation and policy at Ecosurety commented: “Historically the UK recycling system has not provided enough motivation to recycle flexible plastics. By creating a sustainable market for this material, longer term improvements can be made to ensure the flexible plastic that remains necessary for packaging is reliably recycled and eventually contributes to a circular economy, thereby tackling plastic pollution.”
“We hope that by boosting this infrastructure, government and local authorities will be motivated to quickly facilitate flexible plastic recycling in the UK by making it easy for consumers to recycle via household collections in the future.”
‘Major threat’
Rebecca Pow, environment minister added: “Plastic pollution poses a major threat to our precious environment and
“I very much welcome the new Flexible Plastic Fund which will help to recycle more plastic, and I encourage retailers, manufacturers and recyclers to lend their support.” – Rebecca Pow, enviornment minister
wildlife, and that’s why the Government is committed to eliminating all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. Through our plans for consistent recycling collections, extended producer responsibility for packaging manufacturers, a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, and a world-leading plastic packaging tax, we will go further and faster to recycle more plastic and throw less away.”
“I very much welcome the new Flexible Plastic Fund which will help to recycle more plastic, and I encourage retailers, manufacturers and recyclers to lend their support.”
Wrap
It follows recent calls from resources charity WRAP, urging retailers and organisations to do more to recycle plastic bags and film.
The charity launched guidance to help retailers introduce consistent collections for flexible plastic packaging to help divert more from landfill or incineration (see letsrecycle.com).
With just 16% of UK local authorities currently offering household collection of flexible plastics, the amounts of this material collected for recycling are low.
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