Recycled material faces two potential barriers to its uptake: price and quality. If making a product out of virgin material is less expensive than making it from recycled content, it’s hard to see how companies that are under pressure to deliver profit will not make what they perceive to be the short-term economic best choice.

Moreover, recycled products must be equitable in terms of quality and the material properties that go with it, which was once a problem with paper (recycled=brown and rough), and has notably been an issue recently with ensuring recycled cardboard and plastics can be used in food-grade applications, for example. Although you still pay a premium for recycled paper now, the industry has proved that 100 per cent recycled can be just as white as virgin (witness the product in your very hands), and other recycled materials have proven quality track records, as well.

Assuming that quality is the same, if recycling is to become a significant aspect of commodity markets, it will be driven by price. Going forward, if recycled commodities of equal standard to virgin counterparts are not delivered at the same price, then the powers that be have to do one of three things: legislate for minimum inclusion rates; provide incentive for people to take products made from recycled content; or penalise or tax those that use virgin resources. The former option seems unlikely under the current government, and the latter option could in theory disadvantage domestic manufacturers, so the favoured line has to be to offer some sort of inducement. It’s unlikely that the government will consider itself in a position to pay people to take recycled products, so the logical step would be to provide manufacturers with some sort of tax break such as VAT exemption for using recycled material, which could be passed on to the finished product.

In light of the current market tumult, we decided to ask three experts for their take on the matter.

Gev Eduljee, External Affairs Director, Recycling & Waste Recovery UK division of SUEZ

Replacing virgin raw materials with their recycled counterparts is, of course, central to the concept of resource efficiency and of the circular economy.

But theory and practice are two very different things. In the UK, and indeed in Europe in general, markets for recycled material frequently have to compete with lower-priced virgin raw materials. In challenging economic times, it is not surprising that businesses, looking very hard at their bottom lines, procure their raw materials from the cheapest source. When that source happens to be virgin materials (as is presently the case for certain grades of plastic), then recycled materials lose out.

European markets for recycled material have also been limited by lack of production capacity, paper-making being one example. Consequently, we rely on exports to maintain a viable recycling business. While this route should always be kept open, over-reliance on export markets will, in the longer term, leave Europe vulnerable to resource and price shocks.

There is no doubt that recycled materials can and should replace virgin raw materials to a far greater extent than they are presently. But apart from a few committed players – such as Coca-Cola Enterprises, which announced it would raise the recycled content of its PET containers from 34 per cent to 40 per cent by 2020 – the market signals are not allowing this to happen.

Government has a crucial part to play, for example in using powerful market instruments such as green public procurement and fiscal incentives such as lower VAT rates, to stimulate the market for recyclates.

Arsha Branson, former Relationship Development Manager, Berryman Glass Recycling

There are several factors to consider when answering this question, mainly concerning the quality and economics of replacing virgin material with recycled counterparts.

With respect to the glass industry, quality of cullet is a major consideration when replacing the virgin materials of sand, soda ash and limestone. Up to 90 per cent cullet can be used in a batch, but this amount is curbed when contamination within the cullet is high. Ceramics, stones and porcelain (CSP) as well as organics and metals are the main contamination threats, and glass beneficiation plants seek to remove as much of this material as possible. Colour purity is another major consideration, with purity requirements of over 99.5 per cent for the flint cullet stream. Again, the glass beneficiation plant will assist in achieving colour purity, particularly with modern technology such as optical sorters.

Economic feasibility is another prime factor to consider when assessing the viability of replacing virgin materials with recycled material. As cullet is a substitutable good for the typical virgin materials used in a batch, the cost of using cullet must compare favourably against the use of raw materials, unless there are other requirements at play to encourage the use of cullet (i.e. sustainability targets).

There are several major cost considerations when producing cullet, both in terms of the upfront capital cost of glass beneficiation plants and associated running costs and the procurement and logistics of sourcing the feedstock of raw glass.

Currently, a major threat to the viability of replacing virgin materials with recycled cullet is the move towards co-mingled collections by local government and waste service providers. Whilst this presents economic benefits to local government in terms of reduced capital and running costs as well as labour expenditure, it causes major issues further down the supply chain. Collecting glass in a co-mingled fashion requires the material to pass through a material recovery facility (MRF), drastically reducing the quality of raw glass feedstock and thus the amount of glass that can be recycled into new products.

Chris Dow, Chief Executive of Euro Closed Loop Recycling

Many plastic items can contain extremely high levels of recycled content, and the more we collect the more we have the opportunity to replace oil-based resin.

Recycled material replacement of virgin resin is now a well-advanced industry in the UK and a major environmental victory. We know it is safe and has a much lower carbon footprint than virgin materials, but what we need now is to introduce sensible regulations that somehow reflect the cost to the community of using the higher-carbon oil-derived alternative.

We have recently read about Coca-Cola striving for 40 per cent recycled content in its plastic bottles and the Dairy Roadmap striving to take milk bottles from 30 per cent to 50 per cent recycled content by 2020. This is the sort of corporate commitment needed to ensure that this industry is successful and continues to grow as we collect ever more post-consumer materials.

The UK consumer has shown genuine enthusiasm for recycling as evidenced by the sharp growth in recycling rates over the last decade. Now it is time for government to do its part and support the industry with a proper legislative structure to guarantee minimum inclusion rates for recycled content.