The UK will struggle to meet its new plastic packaging recycling targets unless a coordinated, sustainable approach is established, Stuart Foster, chief executive of Recoup (Peterborough / UK; www.recoup.org), a leading authority on plastics waste management and recycling, told the recent RWM exhibition in Birmingham / UK. He said there are growing concerns about the viability of the new ambitious targets that will need to see significant recycling increases across all plastic packaging formats, each of which have a number of different challenges attached to them.

In December 2011, the UK government confirmed that plastic packaging recycling targets would rise from their current 24% to 42% by 2017. That is an increase of more than 500,000 t, from 610,000 t to over 1.15m t that will require increases in plastics collection, handling, sorting and reprocessing. This is where Foster says a coordinated, sustainable approach is needed, with a focus on material quality, low-cost compliance and a strong infrastructure.

Plastic bottles currently form the bulk of plastic packaging that is recycled in the UK, but the level must increase from the present 49% of bottles that are collected to some 70% if the recycling targets are to be met. And whilst an estimated 100,000 t of pots and tubs will be collected this year, the necessary sorting capacity is not available – see Plasteurope.com of 10.05.2012.

Upcoming indicators of the feasibility of the new recycling targets will include the latest Recoup household plastics collection survey, due in late October, and the official quarterly recycling data, published at about the same time. Foster stresses that Recoup will do everything it can to support the UK government and the plastics supply and recycling chain in meeting future recycling targets, but at the moment, he says, there is a very fine line between the ambitious and the unachievable.