Impact
The majority of our activity has been in supporting the UKRI Smart Sustainable Plastics Packaging Challenge. We have been helping shape and support the Challenge from its inception through Deep Dive challenge workshops with the community to our current work with the cohort to access relevant competition funding. Our activities range from simple signposting activity, introductions to companies to form collaborations, or deep discussion and support to give innovation projects the skills and funds to succeed.
"Innovate UK Business Connect and UKCPN have introduced us to a number of customers who have had the desire for a number of years to create new products from the waste of their existing products but have been coming up against roadblocks from other waste suppliers."
Marie Harley
CEO
Blue Castle
Landscape map
Our team consisting of polymer and environmental experts at Innovate UK are knowledgeable and passionate about making the plastics value chain more sustainable. We make it our business to understand the whole supply chain including potential new legislation to deliver better system change innovations.
Take a look at our landscape map to help expand your knowledge about the Circular Plastics Network in the UK. This may be helpful to you if you are an SME, academic or a government institution. We hope you find it useful!
270
%
More likely to gain Innovate UK funding through UKPCN support
£
31
million
Awarded to UKCPN members we supported
200
+
Collaborative projects supported
Latest case studies
Impact Recycling
A world-first solution to sort post-consumer mixed films and flexible plastic packaging waste to produce high purity materials that can be recycled back into new plastic packaging.
Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge: Enabling Research Programme
The aim of this £8 million programme was to fund innovative research to support more sustainable plastic packaging by addressing widely understood problems and knowledge gaps and overcoming barriers to fundamental systems change.
Reath
With support from the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging challenge, this Edinburgh-based start-up has developed a new digital passport platform that makes it easier for packaging to be reused.
