Recycling
The UK plastics Pact
The UK Plastics Pact is a world-first, ambitious voluntary agreement launched in April 2018 by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This unique initiative brings together businesses spanning the entire plastics value chain—including major retailers, manufacturers, packaging suppliers, and reprocessors—alongside UK governments and NGOs. Its overarching goal is to transform the UK's plastic system from a linear "take-make-dispose" model to a circular economy, ensuring plastic is kept in the economy and out of the natural environment, where it can cause pollution. The UK Plastics Pact was the trailblazer for a growing global network of similar pacts. The Pact members committed to four clear, time-bound targets to be achieved by the end of 2025. These targets are designed to drive systemic change across the industry. The four goals are: eliminating problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging; ensuring 100% of plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable; achieving 70% of plastic packaging being effectively recycled or composted; and finally, reaching an average of 30% recycled content across all plastic packaging. These objectives encourage redesign and innovation, the adoption of reuse models, and the building of a stronger, more consistent recycling infrastructure. Since its launch, the Pact has facilitated significant progress by fostering pre-competitive collaboration. Notable achievements include the near-elimination of problematic items like black plastic trays and certain single-use plastics, resulting in hundreds of millions of fewer items being placed on the market. Furthermore, the percentage of plastic packaging considered reusable or recyclable has substantially increased, and the average recycled content in packaging has tripled since 2018. This collective effort has also played a role in reducing the overall carbon footprint of packaging. As the 2025 deadline approaches, the work of the UK Plastics Pact is set to continue and evolve. Recognising that two of the four targets are dependent on the full implementation of future government policies, a successor agreement, the UK Packaging Pact, is being developed to run from 2026 to 2035. This new ten-year journey will broaden the scope to include all packaging materials, focusing on accelerating the shift to a circular system through material optimisation, scaling reuse models, and championing infrastructure investment, thereby ensuring continued momentum beyond the original plastics commitments.
Impacts
The UK Plastics Pact has driven significant change by almost entirely eliminating a list of problematic single-use plastic items from its members' supply chains and reducing the overall volume of plastic packaging. It has also successfully increased the average recycled content in plastic packaging, which has nearly tripled since 2018, contributing to a reduction in carbon emissions. While working to make nearly all rigid plastic packaging recyclable, the Pact continues to focus on overcoming the major hurdles of scaling up reusable packaging and developing solutions for flexible plastic bags and wrapping..