Viridor to end plastic scrap exports

One of Britain’s biggest management companies has pledged to recycle and process all of the plastic waste it handles within the UK from next year.

The move by Viridor follows the publication of its annual Recycling Index which measures public attitudes towards waste and recycling. The Index is reported every year and was unveiled at the RWM exhibition in Birmingham.

Survey results

Viridor says consumers are demanding greater collective national efforts in managing the UK’s waste.  Nine out of 10 respondents (87%) say the UK should find a way to deal with its own recycling without having to export it. That figure is up seven points from a year earlier.

A similar proportion (89%) agrees that existing plastic waste should be used to create useful resources that can be used again, the first time they have been asked that explicitly.

Recycling is hot

Again, 88% say local authorities should work together to collect materials in the same way in a national effort to recycle, up five points on 2018.

Two-thirds (65%) are more likely to buy products with packaging made from recyclable material and nearly half (49%) say they would pay more for products in recycled packaging.

New facility in 2020

Viridor will create flake and pellet from ‘core recyclable materials’ (HDPE bottles, PET bottles and PP pots, tubs and trays) at its large new multi-polymer recycling plant in Avonmouth which opens in 2020. Alongside it is an energy recovery plant for films, flexibles and other materials.

Viridor is owned by Pennon, whose director of corporate affairs and investor relations Sarah Heald says: ‘It is crucial that UK manufacturers and consumers brands want to use recyclable material in new products, that this is part of their own sustainability targets because that is the circular economy in action and that should be everyone’s ambition.’