Introduction

The next decade will bring with it huge challenges and opportunities for the UK plastics recycling industry as the plastics value chain continues its move towards a circular economy and companies are increasingly incentivised to use more recycled content in their products. This roadmap has been created by the British Plastics Federation (BPF) following detailed analysis of available market data and consultation with leading experts to provide an ambitious vision for how the UK could deal with plastic waste by 2030. It will provide a clear overview of the plastics industry today, examining how much plastic is placed on the market, how much is recycled and what the capacity for plastics recycling in the UK is today. The report will look not only at how we deal with our waste today but also at how we could deal with it by 2030, including an examination of the emerging technology of non-mechanical recycling and the key role it will play in the future. A significant part of this is to move to zero reliance on low-quality export to reverse the current dependence on export as an outlet for end of life plastics. Britain has the chance to lead the world in the rapid transition to a circular economy for plastics, where a ‘full-system’ approach is taken for collection, sorting and reprocessing of plastic products. The roadmap will examine the drivers of change required to make this possible.