Significant progress has been made by local authorities, the recycling industry and other parts of the supply chain towards achieving a circular economy for plastics, according to a new report compiled by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which also suggests that there is no shortage in end market sectors for collected plastics.

The updated ‘Plastics Market Situation Report’, part of a series of such reports examining current economic conditions and trends in the markets for recovered materials, analyses the latest data and provides information about UK plastics recycling and reprocessing. The report includes analyses of recovered plastic flows, prices and the sustainability of end markets, and updates previous data from the 2011 report.

WRAP reports that progress has been made by local authorities, the recycling industry and the wider supply chain towards achieving a circular economy for plastics.

The report shows a 50 per cent increase (to a rate of 40 per cent) in recycling of plastic packaging, and progress in the introduction of mixed plastic collections by local authorities, up to an estimated 67 per cent in 2014/15, since 2008/09.

Another key theme is the assessment of the different plastics end markets in the UK and abroad. The report shows that there is a wide range of end market sectors and applications potentially available for UK collected plastics. One example is Sicut Enterprise Ltd, which manufactures infrastructure products, including railway sleepers, from recycled waste products.

On the other hand, analysis shows that there is concern over finding sustainable end markets for non-bottle rigid plastics (pots, tubs and trays – PTTs), and polystyrene packaging, which cannot be recycled, also has little or no end market demand. The slowdown of China’s economic growth has also raised concerns that there will be less demand for recovered plastic from China.

Another issue raised by the report is the decline in recovered polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and mixed polymer plastic bottle prices due to lower oil and cotton prices and concerns about China’s enforcement of import controls.

Despite concerns from the plastics recycling sector over competition with virgin plastic due to the decline in oil prices, which has led to the closure of recycling facilities, data from the report suggests that plastic pricing often does not reflect the price of oil.

The ‘key challenge’, the report concludes, will be in meeting EU plastics recycling targets, including a target in the Circular Economy Package of recycling 55 per cent of all plastic packaging (from a current rate of 40 per cent) by 2025.

‘Plastic recyclers don’t have to wait for oil prices to rise again’

Marcus Gover, Director at WRAP, said: “Much has been achieved since we published the second ‘Plastics Market Situation Report’ [in] 2011, but there is still more to be done with challenging targets looming and testing market conditions.

“Plastic recyclers don’t have to wait for oil prices to rise again. There are markets out there that will work that aren’t linked to oil prices. It’s about keeping costs low, not overreaching and identifying an end product to sell the reprocessed materials into.”

Barry Turner, Director of Plastics and Flexible Packaging Group at the British Plastics Federation, said: “Collecting information down to the granular and detailed level as presented in this report is always challenging, but the estimates and actual data given nevertheless present an excellent summary of the market and progress made in extending the plastic collection and recycling in the UK, together with some of the future challenges and opportunities that exist.”

WRAP’s ‘Plastics Market Situation Report’ can be downloaded from WRAP’s website.