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WRAP’s Roadmap to a Circular Flexibles Economy

Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), is a UK based Charity and Limited Company founded in 2000 to promote sustainable waste management. WRAP provides information, tools and practical advice to governments, businesses and consumers in a non-competitive space where they can share best practice and collaborate to deliver change.

This year WRAP introduced their roadmap to 2025 for a “Circular Economy for Flexible Plastic Packaging”, with the intention of galvanising the entire plastics value chain around a common roadmap for flexible plastic packaging. This form of packaging represents 25% of all UK consumer plastic packaging. Currently, however, only 4% is recycled and so urgent action is required to ensure that the UK Plastics Pact targets are achieved.

The Roadmap will involve investment in waste management infrastructure to promote a shift to a circular economy and achieve its aims, which include:

  • Eliminate single use packaging.
  • 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025; and
  • 70% of plastic packaging effectively recycled or composted by 2025.
  • 30% average recycled content across all plastic packaging. 

Being a resource efficient, lightweight material, flexible plastic packaging plays an important role in reducing food waste, however the approach to recycling it is fragmented. To address this and create a circular economy for flexibles, it is WRAP’s contention that a coordinated effort involving the entire value chain is required. These efforts should be focusing in particular on designing packaging that can be recycled and sorted; capitalising in the short term on supermarket front of store collection points and progressing, in the long term, to implementing kerbside collections in all local authorities. This requires investment in sorting and reprocessing capacity and capabilities, and in ensuring recycled flexible plastic packaging has strong and stable end markets. The roadmap sets out the high-level actions that need to be taken by each part of the value chain, and a strategy that aligns with the European programme Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX).

As part of their commitment to achieving targets for reducing waste and increasing the recycling rate for plastic packaging, the government has adopted the Single Use Packaging Directive. This will introduce the Plastic Packaging Tax in April 2022 and introduce an Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for packaging in 2023.

Let’s Recycle It can help you achieve your own targets for a “Circular Economy for Flexible Plastic Packaging”, we can provide advice on how to handle your waste or even purchase your waste material from you to recycle. As well as this, we can source materials for recyclers and supply recycled material back into the supply chain.

Let’s Recycle It are an accredited recycler, we offer a fully traceable service, we make fast payments and we guarantee the most environmentally sustainable treatment of your waste.

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