Thanks to the rollout of Simpler Recycling, in a little less than a year, flexible plastic packaging (such as bread bags, food pouches, chocolate bar wrappers and crisp packets) will be collected from homes and businesses for recycling across the UK. As things stand, the UK is ill-prepared to recycle what will be collected. If this remains the case it will result in frustrated responses from householders and businesses. Circular economy and net zero will also take a detrimental hit. In this article, Dr Torik Holmes highlights research from the second ‘Everyday Flexible Plastic Packaging Recycling Assembly’, making an urgent call for a stronger strategic approach to waste governance and policy.

• A significant proportion of the estimated 215 billion items of flexible plastic packaging annually placed on the UK market will be collected and sorted for recycling by 2027.
• The UK remains ill-prepared to recycle flexible plastic packaging.
• There is an urgent need for a stronger strategic approach that prioritises the production and uptake of recycled feedstocks, halting the loss of infrastructural capacity and upscaling capabilities that makes sustainability pay.

The need for a stronger strategic approach

The collection, sorting and recycling of flexible plastic packaging across the UK has never been done before. Simpler Recycling thus presents an unprecedented challenge, which needs to be taken on as part of circular economy and net zero transitions.

Worryingly, however, rather than seeing an increase in recycling capacity, in line with the rollout of Simpler Recycling and other UK and EU policies that are driving higher demand for recycled feedstocks, the general trend is decline. In the UK, for example, more than 200,000 tonnes of plastic reprocessing capacity have disappeared since 2024. As a result, just when capacity is needed most, it is disappearing.

The loss of capacity is symptomatic of a wider lack of strategic thinking and planning concerning flexible plastic packaging recycling. The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, published in November 2025, says little to nothing specific on plastic packaging and plastics recycling. The publication of The Circular Economy Growth Plan has, moreover, been delayed. Whether this or other initiatives, including the recently launched All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sustainable Plastics, will deliver much-needed strategic clarity remains unclear.

What is clear is that the UK is in urgent need of a detailed and comprehensive strategy for UK flexible plastic packaging recycling.

Making sustainable end markets for flexible plastic packaging a reality

A multi-stakeholder impact and engagement research initiative, supported by the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) and Henry Royce Institute, focused on what is needed to make sustainable end markets for UK flexible plastic packaging. Despite a diversity of voices in attendance from across the value chain, there was a surprising degree of agreement on the urgent need for a stronger strategic approach, focusing on three key priorities.

Priority 1: Favour the production and use of recycled feedstocks

Favouring the production and use of recycled feedstocks over virgin, fossil-fuel-based derivatives is a key priority. Firstly, this will give the recycling industry a much-needed boost. Secondly, it will help bring about sustainable end markets for recycled content. Over the shorter term, there is a strong justification to accept that it is better to get recycled content into a fuller range of commodities, which may not represent closed loop cycles (i.e., food-grade-to-food-grade packaging), than it is to see flexibles hit incinerators, landfill or export. This acceptance needs to be caveated with the longer-term strategic goal of getting recycled materials into closed-loop cycles based on the momentum of short-term shifts.

Priority 2: Stop the loss of recycling capacity and scale up capabilities

Stopping the contraction in UK recycling capacity and scaling up capabilities is another priority. This is crucial to the delivery of Priority 1 and therefore to making sure that recycled feedstocks are available to feed into a fuller range of commodities and end markets. The infrastructural scale up required needs to prioritise the national coordination of collection, sorting and reprocessing infrastructures. A strategically oriented, time-sensitive approach to the balance between mechanical and chemical recycling pathways needs to dovetail with this to maximise the potentials of flexibles recycling.

Priority 3: Make sustainability pay   

Making sure that it pays to recycle flexible plastic packaging is another strategic priority. This is key to Priority 2 and achieving the upscaling and coordination of UK recycling infrastructure required to deliver Priority 1 and therefore to producing recyclate (materials made from waste) needed to replace the use of virgin, fossil-fuel feedstocks. For too long, financial costs have proven prohibitive to socially, environmentally and economically sustainable investment in UK plastics recycling.

No time to waste – suggested policy pathways

The combination of UK waste policy, including Simpler Recycling, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

and the Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT), does not add up to a holistic strategic approach to flexible plastic packaging recycling. Such an approach is urgently needed to make sure that flexible plastic packaging that is set to be collected and sorted at scale for recycling is recycled.

As part of prioritising the fuller use of recycled content, to gain some much-needed industry momentum, a more ambitious approach to the use of recyclate and adherence to design for recyclability is recommended, following or even going further than that being pursued by the EU’s 2030 Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR).

To get fuller use of recycled content, renewed investment in the recycling industry and infrastructure is needed. It is recommended, in turn, that the £250-plus million generated through the PPT and a proportion of the £1.5 billion forecast to come with EPR be ring-fenced for such purposes. This approach needs to see spending spread and targeted to where it is needed most, not simply aimed at local collection and sorting, as per the current design of EPR. This spending spread could usefully see the use of low interest loans or subsidies for recycling plant investments or sector innovation and scale-up.

The use of low-interest loans or subsidies complements a third and final recommendation, which is to make sustainability pay. Policy further needs to address, in this regard, high operating costs, the challenges of competing with cheaper imports, and the more economically lucrative allure of exporting plastic waste, all of which dampen risk appetite for domestic investment.

If a greater strategic approach to flexible plastic packaging recycling does not materialise quickly, the UK looks set to disappoint on the promise of Simpler Recycling and related commitments to circular economy and net zero.