The Grocer – Feedback letter from the FPF FlexCollect team

“The Grocer recently published an article on FPF FlexCollect which appears to imply that the UK’s largest flexible plastic household collection and recycling pilot has run into difficulty.

In reality, we have three successful pilots underway, and these are already yielding important insights that we will share in due course. The very nature of the pilots means they are intended to identify and overcome challenges to smooth the way for the widespread rollout of household collections of flexible plastics.

The project covers all the operational costs of the trials, which is of huge support for participating local authorities who can essentially get ready for the rollout of kerbside collection for flexible plastics before the 2027 deadline set by the Government.

However, our discussions with interested local authorities have underlined that, although the project covers all the operational costs, greater certainty over longer-term funding streams for collecting new materials is essential.

Equally, our engagement with material recycling facilities has highlighted the potential complexity of handling the material and associated costs, making the case for policy certainty to support investment in updating our current infrastructure and developing new facilities all the more important.

With three more pilots in the pipeline, we’re now recruiting authorities for the remaining three slots. In view of the emerging results from our early pilots and the fantastic engagement from participating households, we’re confident more authorities will be keen to get involved.

The FlexCollect Team“