Resources

With government plans to introduce mandatory kerbside collections for films and flexibles by 2027 there is a growing need for a consistent terminology to effectively communicate to citizens. Between March 2020 and October 2022 WRAP undertook three rounds of citizen testing to measure the clarity and effectiveness of a wide range in terminology, with a clear preference presenting itself, as well as key principles for communicating positive recycling behaviour.

A review of plastic waste management practices, life cycle assessments, challenges and opportunities

This report provides an overview of current waste management practices for plastic waste in the UK and critically reviews end of life plastic waste life cycle assessments to highlight best practice waste management methods. The report further identifies challenges and potential solutions to help move UK plastic waste up the waste hierarchy.

In order to implement a real circular economy, we need to change the way we produce, consume and dispose of our products. The Accelerator Session ‘Plastics: from a linear problem to circular solutions’ will be delivered in collaboration by WRAP, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank on the 8th December under the frame of the 2022 World Circular Economy Forum (6th-8th December 2022) held in Kigali, Rwanda. This remote Accelerator Session will focus on the much-discussed issue of plastics, showing new data about the effect of plastic waste mismanagement and discussing the actions that many stakeholders and innovators are taking to explore and implement solutions.

Through The UK Plastics Pact we are redesigning the plastics system, working across the entire plastics value chain to reduce its climate impact, by stopping plastic waste, and the harmful emissions of new plastic production, keeping the material in the economy and out of the environment.

We are over halfway to The UK Plastics Pact targets and our 2021-22 annual report gives an honest appraisal of progress and challenges. 

Setting out the UK’s vision for best in class design in rigid household plastic packaging. Includes plastic packaging currently classed as recyclable and the ambition for recycled content. 

Updated Guidance: November 2022 

We need to radically transform our relationship with single-use plastic packaging and a key part of this will be the move to reuse and refill for many everyday items we purchase.

Our latest report and research explores citizen behaviours around reuse and refill. In partnership with Asda and Unilever, we shadowed research participants across the whole of their shopping journey. From pre-shop preparation to instore experience, we evaluated how our trial participants interacted with refill zones and developed and tested a series of instore behaviour change interventions. All designed to improve the reuse and refill shopping experience for our participants.

This report from WRAP and the University of Leeds builds on previous research to provide a quantitative assessment of possible policy interventions to reduce resource consumption and green house gas emissions associated with their production.

Non-mechanical recycling has the potential to significantly increase the UK’s recycling rates, enable recycled content to be used back in packaging and divert valuable resources from landfill and incineration. Working alongside traditional mechanical recycling, it will have a big impact towards the redesign of our plastics system in the UK and our vision of a circular economy for plastics.

This paper sets out the WRAP’s position on the use of non-mechanical recycling technologies and how it must be effectively utilised to support the transition towards a circular economy for plastics in the UK.

This brochure showcases projects delivered by the Resource Action Fund (RAF) grants within the plastic policy area.

The Resource Action Fund (RAF) was an £18 million fund, provided by Defra to support resource efficiency projects, with the goal of diverting, reducing, and better managing waste.

A high-level desk-based research study and series of stakeholder interviews has been conducted to ascertain the key non-technical challenges to the implementation of non-mechanical recycling in the UK, with particular emphasis on legislative elements.