Soap Box Blog: It’s time for a national recycling strategy

It’s great to see that Hilary Benn talked about packaging recycling at last week’s Labour party conference, putting the issue back on the political agenda. We at Closed Loop Recycling know from our individual meetings and visits with ministers from all the major parties that the subject of recycling is taking higher precedence than ever before.

The most significant change in recent years is that the UK has now closed the loop on recycling. Despite media coverage in the national papers earlier this year which could have done a lot of harm, consumers continue to do a fantastic job recycling more and more of their household waste each year which is in part due to many local authorities now understanding the importance of recycling a wider variety of materials than before. Waste companies such as Veolia have also met the challenge to provide effective logistical solutions to enable more sustainable waste management and help close the loop on recycling.

World-leading technologies have been developed and utilised by companies such as ourselves, to enable packaging companies like Reynolds and Solo Cup Europe, retailers such as Marks & Spencer and big brand owners like Britvic, Coca Cola, Nampak and the UK dairies to make the decision to use recycled content in their packaging, as part of their commitment to more sustainable packaging solutions.

As a nation we are working harder than ever before to close the loop on recycling. But what the UK still lacks is a nationwide strategy for recycling collection, infrastructure development and incentives to promote the use of recycled material. What we would like to see now is some cohesive thinking across government by way of a cross party message of support followed by some real action. Only then can we as a nation be serious about recycling more of the packaging we produce.

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