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Plastic Recycling Industry Needs Its Own Resource Security Action Plan, Says Closed Loop

2 May 2012

The Government's Resource Security Action Plan should be extended to include other scarce and valuable materials such as plastics, is the message from Closed Loop Recycling CEO Chris Dow

According to Dow, there is a multi-million pound opportunity in the massive amount of valuable raw materials lost each year in the UK because of how we deal now with the products people no longer want.

He believes the recent decision to increase recycling targets to 57 percent goes some way to help generate resource security and industry growth, but that more can be done to ensure the industry continues to develop, and with it, bring thousands of green jobs and thus increased UK prosperity.

"The Resource Security Action Plan is designed to make sure UK businesses are more resilient to any changes in the supply and price of scarce, valuable materials such as metals, and can make the most of new opportunities," Chris Dow explained. "This is exactly the case in the plastics recycling industry and we want to play our part. We support the objective of seeing British businesses taking advantage of this golden opportunity to boost growth and jobs through how we design products, while re-using, recycling or substituting valuable materials."

"I believe the Plan should be extended to include post consumer plastics as a resource, in order that our industry can maximise their extraction and re-use here in the UK, rather than exporting them abroad for lower grade use.　

"This, combined with the MRF Code of Practice and a review of the PRN/PERN system, would create the ideal backdrop to enable us to deliver the 57 percent recycling targets in a timely and efficient way."

Darrel Moore