The Flexible Plastic Fund (FPF) warns the delay to the mandatory kerbside collections of flexible plastic packaging risks future investment and growth across the UK.
The FPF, which is managed by compliance scheme Ecosurety and supported by environmental charity Hubbub, has called on the government to urgently publish a transition plan following the delay.
The Fund was established in 2021 by Mars UK, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever, and has since been joined by a further 15 UK consumer goods manufacturers.
Last week, the UK Government confirmed it had delayed the mandatory kerbside collections of flexible plastic packaging from March 2027 to 1 April 2030.
However, the Welsh and Scottish administrations have since confirmed they plan to stick with the original timeframe.
The FPF warns the delay risks future investment and growth across the UK, and could weaken the UK’s domestic capacity to meet recycled content obligations.
Gareth Morton, Discovery Manager at Ecosurety and FPF Lead, criticised the government for not engaging with the FPF despite the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) telling councils its decision was based on ‘extensive engagement’ with the sector.
He argued that the Flexible Plastic Fund holds the ‘most comprehensive evidence base’ on how to make household collections of flexible plastics work effectively.
Last year, the FlexCollect project, which consolidated more than three years of trials across 10 UK local authorities, concluded that flexible plastic collections at kerbside are popular with the public and easy to implement.
The FPF project found that flexible plastic packaging can be incorporated into all collection service types with ‘relative ease’ through the use of collection bags, or loose in dry mixed recycling collections when appropriate sorting infrastructure is available.
UK Packaging Sustainability Lead for Pepsico and FPF spokesperson, Gareth Callan, said the delay risks ‘destroying investor confidence at the very point when the UK needs to scale up its domestic reprocessing capacity’.
However, local authorities reacted positively to the delay, with LARAC (Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee) saying a lack of established domestic end markets and the readiness of sorting and reprocessing infrastructure were key reasons why the policy should be delayed.
Executive Director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), Jacob Hayler, called the delay the ‘correct decision’, citing a ‘lack of market capacity’ for the materials and ‘demand-side drivers’.
Robbie Staniforth, Chief Policy and Impact Officer at Ecosurety, was also critical of the delay and called it a ‘sad day for recycling’.
“Further delaying mandated collections will not in itself create end-markets,” Staniforth said. “The markets have had four years of advanced warning, and throughout that period investor confidence in flexible plastic recycling remained low.”
“Today, that investor position has been justified. Delaying for a further three years is unlikely to improve their confidence.”
Dan Cooke, Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs at CIWM, said the decision was ‘pragmatic’ and ‘reflects market realities’, but said the delay reflects the ‘lack of clarity’ on policy and strategy the sector faces.