“Given that around 70 to 80 percent of the UK’s plastics collected for recycling are actually exported, then developing stronger trading partnerships is key if we are to improve both the quality and the proportion of recovered materials used in new goods, many of which are manufactured in Asia,” said Freegard, who is set to address 400 delegates at the next month’s fourth annual China Plastics Recycling Exhibition and Conference in Hang Zhou.

“Huge amounts of agricultural and industrial films, post-consumer and WEEE plastics are exported to China because sufficient recycling capacity does not exist here in the UK to recover these materials economically,” he continued. “Focusing on partnership processing of tradable materials with our Chinese colleagues has to be the best way forward in terms of reducing environmental impact and increasing global levels of material recovery.”