UK Budget and recycling

When he stood up in Parliament earlier this week to deliver his first Budget Chancellor Rishi Sunak promised a lot and delivered one many of his promises including addressing the problems posed by recycling and plastic packaging.

Following the budget manufacturers and importers will have to pay £200 per ton on plastic which has less than 30 per cent recycled content. The tax will be introduced from April 2022, while businesses that manufacture or import less than ten tons of plastic packaging a year will be exempted.

It is hoped that this new incentive will increase the use of recycled plastics in packaging by 40 per cent – equal to carbon savings of nearly 200,000 tons.