A competition by UK Research & Innovation’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, has funded six projects to design easy-to-use solutions for capturing and storing household flexible plastics for recycling.
While flexible plastic packaging represents nearly a quarter of all UK consumer plastic packaging and is responsible for packing 40% of products, only around 6% of the 895,000 tonnes placed on the UK market every year is recycled. However, in line with the government’s plans for Simpler Recycling announced recently, local authorities in England will be collecting household flexible plastic packaging for recycling by 2027, and a growing number of large supermarkets are also providing in-store collection points.
“One of the barriers to recycling household flexible plastic packaging is that it’s bulky and springy and requires a lot of storage space unless it’s squashed.”
“This funding is supporting the development of innovative, user-friendly solutions to address this and help householders collect and store these materials efficiently for either collection at the kerbside or to be taken to a supermarket collection point.”
Nick Cliffe, SSPP Deputy Director
The six projects, which between them were awarded £244,000 of grant funding by the SSPP Challenge, are:
- SRS International Ltd will develop a battery-operated device to densify and store household flexible plastic waste, reducing storage space and promoting ease of transportation to a collection or deposit point.
- LUMA-iD Ltd is developing a capsule that compresses flexible plastic by 400% without any complicated moving parts. With clear iconography that informs the user which plastics are suitable for recycling, the capsule also has a fullness indicator and a mechanism to empty the compressed contents into a bag.
- Crucible Medtech Ltd are designing a kitchen counter-top waste collector and compactor. The device will be about the size of a small waste basket or a large toaster and the flexible plastic waste will be compacted and baled for easy handling and transportation.
- Will Davis Design Ltd, trading as StudioDavis, are designing a collection and compression system for managing and storing flexible waste in the home. By engaging users in the early stages and rapidly prototyping a number of initial concepts, the intention is to understand the functional and technical requirements to produce an innovative container in the UK from recycled materials.
- Led by Sheephill Orchard Ltd, the Vac-Flex project is assessing the feasibility of a reusable vacuum pack collection method for flexible plastic packaging. The project will develop a dedicated ‘lock & release’ vacuum container that stores and temporarily compresses the waste to reduce the volume.
- Approach Studio Ltd will be designing and trialing a standalone compacting caddy with design elements that encourage the collection of both small and larger plastic film formats and include a retaining funnel system, compaction and a locking handle system for easy carrying and transport.
The projects will also have the opportunity to trial their designs as part of the FPF FlexCollect project, the most extensive pilot for household collection and recycling of flexible packaging to be undertaken in the UK to date.
