Biffa has urged ministers to intervene to boost the market for recycled plastic after the waste giant closed a reprocessing plant in the North East just four years after it opened.
The Buckinghamshire-headquartered firm said the facility in Washington, near Sunderland, had been shut down earlier this year despite only becoming operational in 2021.
Biffa said post-lockdown economic conditions had led it to consolidate its reprocessing estate with materials redirected to a plant in Redcar.
A spokesperson added that cross-border trade in used plastics had dampened the market for UK reprocessing.
“Demand from packaging manufacturers as a whole has not changed dramatically,” they said. “However their ability to source cheap imported recycled materials from Asia has had a negative effect on the UK recycling industry.”
Biffa outlined “two pivotal asks of the government” to boost the economy and “future-proof supply chains and resources”.
“Phase out the export of unprocessed plastic waste so the UK manages its own waste,” the spokesperson urged. “Exporting unprocessed plastic waste sends jobs, raw materials and environmental risk abroad, and undermines the UK’s domestic recycling sector, fuelling a race to the bottom.”
They also called for ministers to “implement more progressive demand-side measures, including raising the plastic packaging tax threshold progressively to 50 per cent recycled content by 2030 and cracking down on bogus imports of non-recycled materials passed off as recycled.”
