Resources

New insights designed to help the food and drink sector transform the food system by changing the way consumers buy fresh fruit and veg in the UK.  

A new plastic bags and wrapping recycling trial service has been introduced in a select few local areas. A small number of households in selected areas across England will be able to recycle their plastic bags and wrapping from their home.

The trial will be available to a small number of residents at the start, but it will gradually expand to more residents in the selected areas over the next 2-3 years.

The 2022 Plastics Market Situation report updates on the amount of plastic packaging Placed On the Market (POM), collection rates, recycling rates, and provides an update on key developments over the past few years highlighting the challenges and opportunities ahead.

• Fall in plastic packaging placed on the market
• Movement away from rigid plastic packaging towards lightweight and flexible plastics in the consumer sector.  
• Domestic recycling of plastic has increased to 53%.
• Planned recycling capacity increases will be a boost but will still fall well below current levels of plastic packaging consumption.  
• Collection rates are improving for plastic packaging with more flexible plastic, rigid plastics, plastic bottles and PTTs being collected at kerbside. 

In late 2022, WRAP, in conjunction with reusable packaging experts Unpackaged, brought together members of The UK Plastics Pact to deliver a series of industry roundtables. The roundtables considered the barriers and opportunities for category-focused collaboration, with the aim of driving increased uptake of reusable packaging across a selection of high impact product categories. The following report summarises the insights and recommendations gathered through this rich, industry focused series of dialogues.

With government plans to introduce mandatory kerbside collections for films and flexibles by 2027 there is a growing need for a consistent terminology to effectively communicate to citizens. Between March 2020 and October 2022 WRAP undertook three rounds of citizen testing to measure the clarity and effectiveness of a wide range in terminology, with a clear preference presenting itself, as well as key principles for communicating positive recycling behaviour.

A review of plastic waste management practices, life cycle assessments, challenges and opportunities

This report provides an overview of current waste management practices for plastic waste in the UK and critically reviews end of life plastic waste life cycle assessments to highlight best practice waste management methods. The report further identifies challenges and potential solutions to help move UK plastic waste up the waste hierarchy.

Through The UK Plastics Pact we are redesigning the plastics system, working across the entire plastics value chain to reduce its climate impact, by stopping plastic waste, and the harmful emissions of new plastic production, keeping the material in the economy and out of the environment.

We are over halfway to The UK Plastics Pact targets and our 2021-22 annual report gives an honest appraisal of progress and challenges. 

Setting out the UK’s vision for best in class design in rigid household plastic packaging. Includes plastic packaging currently classed as recyclable and the ambition for recycled content. 

Updated Guidance: November 2022 

We need to radically transform our relationship with single-use plastic packaging and a key part of this will be the move to reuse and refill for many everyday items we purchase.

Our latest report and research explores citizen behaviours around reuse and refill. In partnership with Asda and Unilever, we shadowed research participants across the whole of their shopping journey. From pre-shop preparation to instore experience, we evaluated how our trial participants interacted with refill zones and developed and tested a series of instore behaviour change interventions. All designed to improve the reuse and refill shopping experience for our participants.

Non-mechanical recycling has the potential to significantly increase the UK’s recycling rates, enable recycled content to be used back in packaging and divert valuable resources from landfill and incineration. Working alongside traditional mechanical recycling, it will have a big impact towards the redesign of our plastics system in the UK and our vision of a circular economy for plastics.

This paper sets out the WRAP’s position on the use of non-mechanical recycling technologies and how it must be effectively utilised to support the transition towards a circular economy for plastics in the UK.