Managing controlled waste - code of practice: duty of care - island communities impact assessment

Policy objectives and intended outcomes

21. Plastic film (including flexible packaging) comprises around a third of plastic packaging placed on the market each year. However, it is estimated that only ~7% of plastic film is currently collected for recycling.^[23] This means that a substantial quantity of plastic enters the residual waste system due to insufficient incentives to increase the collection and processing infrastructure.

22. The collection of plastic film for recycling will increase the overall recycling rate for plastic packaging. Increasing market certainty around availability of supply will in turn incentivise the development of more reprocessing capacity and increase the availability of recycled plastic, which may help to reduce plastic packaging tax payments of producers.

Non-Household Municipal (NHM) sector

23. The NHM sector has low levels of recycling, with recycling rates estimated at 36.5% across the UK^[24]. The waste composition profiles for the diverse NHM sectors all show much larger proportions of recyclable waste compared to household waste.^[25] This is primarily due to businesses purchasing packaged goods from their supply chain, food waste generated in preparation and post-consumer waste. As such, the recycling potential from NHM sectors is significantly greater than from the household sector which produces greater proportions of non-recyclable waste.

24. Waste management and recycling costs remain a very small proportion of overall NHM turnover.^[26] There has been limited improvement to NHM recycling rates for materials not covered by legislation, and are few alternative options to incentivise businesses to collect and separate plastic films. Legislation and associated guidance therefore acts as an important driver for change that would otherwise be unlikely to happen without large scale participation across the numerous and diverse NHM sectors.