LIVORNO, ITALY - MAY 24: A view of bales of materials of colored plastic bottles ready to be recycled including the plastic waste collected by the fishermen during the operations of 'Arcipelago Pulito' project in the Tyrrhenian Sea is dispalyed in the company Revet Recycling on May 24, 2018 in Pontedera near Pisa, Italy. As part of the ' Arcipelago Pulito ' project in Tuscany, fisherman bring ashore the plastic they have collected on their fishing trips for recycling at a specialised plant. The project is the result of an agreement between the Tuscan Region, the Ministry of the Environment, Unicoop Firenze and Revet Recycling with the total supervision of the Coast Guard of Tuscany. About 10% of the volume of each fish haul caught is plastic waste. (Photo by Laura Lezza/Getty Images)
Plastic bottles ready to be recycled (Picture: Getty)

Recycled plastic could make up three quarters of packaging and products used in the UK, a report suggests.

At the moment, the UK only collects a third of plastic waste for recycling – and two thirds of that gets sent abroad and may not even be recycled.

The Green Alliance report says that if we brought in mandatory targets, subsidies and funding then recycled plastic could make up 75% of the raw materials for UK manufacturers.

It could also see more waste plastic collected and reused in the UK.

At the moment, only 9% of all plastics are recycled domestically, according to a report by Green Alliance for leading business group the Circular Economy Task Force.

PISA, ITALY - MAY 24: A view of bales of Plasmix ready to be recycled including the plastic waste collected by the fishermen during the operations of 'Arcipelago Pulito' project in the Tyrrhenian Sea is dispalyed in the company Revet Recycling on May 24, 2018 in Pontedera near Pisa, Italy. As part of the ' Arcipelago Pulito ' project in Tuscany, fisherman bring ashore the plastic they have collected on their fishing trips for recycling at a specialised plant. The project is the result of an agreement between the Tuscan Region, the Ministry of the Environment, Unicoop Firenze and Revet Recycling with the total supervision of the Coast Guard of Tuscany. About 10% of the volume of each fish haul caught is plastic waste. (Photo by Laura Lezza/Getty Images)
Only 9% of plastics are recycled within the UK (Picture: Getty)

But developing a stronger market in the UK for the plastic that is collected could encourage an additional two million tonnes of plastic to be recycled here.

That could provide 71% of the raw material needed by UK manufacturers for plastic packaging and products, with benefits for the environment and the economy, the report said.

Libby Peake, senior policy adviser on resources at Green Alliance, said: ‘If the UK wants to lead the world in addressing the global scourge of plastic pollution, that means creating a circular economy at home that allows us to turn discarded plastics back into new products.

‘Just collecting plastic and shipping it abroad doesn’t solve the problem.’

The report also warned that while the UK wanted to be a world leader in electric vehicles and renewables, the country was 100% dependent on imports for key components of the technologies, such as cobalt and rare earth elements.

Standards for recycled content, using public procurement to favour manufacturers which use recovered materials and ensuring car batteries are reused for static battery storage could help with the problem.

Reclaiming these important materials in discarded products which would otherwise be wasted could supply over a third of the domestic rare earth elements and half of the cobalt needed by 2035.

And a market to create high value products from more than seven million tonnes of low value steel scrap could reduce iron ore imports by 40% and cut carbon emissions from steel production by 30%, the report said.

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