RECOUP updates Recyclability by Design guidelines

U.K.-based RECOUP (RECycling of Used Plastics Ltd.) has released its updated Recyclability by Design publication to include guidelines for recyclability of plastic film. The publication includes RecyClass’ recyclability tables in order to help address the challenge of designing plastic film packaging to give it the greatest chance of being recycled.

According to a news release from RECOUP, the updated guidance includes the importance of separation of materials, avoidance of laminates and the greater recyclability credentials of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) film when compared with other materials. The publication also features contributions from RECOUP members, including Coca-Cola, Faerch, Garçon Wines, KP Films, Krehalon, Borealis and Tomra Sorting Solutions.

RECOUP’s decision to include film comes as the U.K. continues to work toward its recycling ambitions for 2025, RECOUP states. While it is estimated that almost 400,000 metric tons of plastic film are produced in the U.K. each year, RECOUP’s annual U.K. Household Plastics Collection Survey reported in 2019 that only 16 percent of U.K. local authorities listed film as being collected in curbside recycling. RECOUP reports that this low service rate is, in part, due to the challenges this material causes collection and sorting machinery, its lightweight nature, transportation issues, the low value as well as the high contamination rates for this type of material. 

The updated guidelines aim to support making plastic film packaging more suitable for collection, RECOUP reports. They also aim to reduce contamination levels and the weight and quantity of films in non-circular waste routes.

“At times of increasingly challenging recycling targets both in the U.K. and across Europe, there is an ever-increasing importance in finding sources of plastics to recycle rather than go to noncircular end destinations such as landfill and incineration,” says Paul East, RECOUP’s packaging sustainability manager. “RECOUP’s Recyclability by Design publication helps to address this at the first stage by advising users and designers of plastic packaging of the best way to ensure that their packaging has the best chance of being recycled, or, failing that, have minimal impact in terms of what cannot be recycled.”

The Recyclability by Design document is available to download for free on the RECOUP website, at http://www.recoup.org/p/173/download-centre.