The Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) has said in its annual report that the UK can “theoretically” meet its target to recycle 57% of plastic packaging by 2017 if more effort is made to collect rigid plastics.

More specifically it has stated that the target will only be achievable if all councils renewing their waste and recycling contracts until 2017 opt to include bottles and mixed rigid plastics in collections. It also states that the collection rate for plastics will need to increase, rising 42% for rigid mixed plastics and 8% for plastic bottles.

The group notes that currently only 35% of local authorities collect mixed rigid plastics, and estimates that an additional 185,000 tonnes of rigid plastic packaging will be needed.