​WASTE PLASTIC IN THE UK

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• More than two million tonnes of plastic is discarded in the UK every year

• Less than half is currently recycled, predominantly through the application of conventional (mechanical) processes

• Of this, only a third is actually processed here (nearly two thirds of the plastic that is included in UK recycling data is actually processed elsewhere).

• In short, five sixths of UK waste plastic is incinerated, landfilled or sent abroad for processing.

• Some types of plastic are hardly recycled at all because they are hard to separate or have little intrinsic value.

• We can recover categories of waste plastic that would be unviable to recycle using conventional processes.