The way Britain will get better at reprocessing plastic materials with recycling station hire services is for manufacturers, plastic recyclers and injection moulders to co-operate with each other better.

This is according to UK-based company Axion Polymers, which believes this will help meet rising demand for recycled products, as well as improve the economic value of recycling materials.

Indeed, its processing sites are designed to refine plastics from old vehicles and electronics into high-quality engineering polymers, Recycling International reported.

These Axpoly and Axplas polymers can be used for a huge variety of products, and are incredibly close to the synthetically produced material.

However, to make recycling more economically viable, end markets need to justify the cost of processing.

The company states: “Moulders who work with recyclers on understanding physical polymer properties and, crucially, engage in practical trials to understand the suitability of a recycled polymer in new applications can gain a competitive advantage in emerging circular economy markets.”

There is growing pressure on manufacturers to produce packaging that can be recycled, as well as incorporate recycled products into their own items.

There is also reason to believe a tax could be introduced on packaging that does not have a sufficient amount of recycled content, which is why manufacturing businesses are geared up to find a more environmentally-friendly solution.

Axion states there is a resistance to using recycled content among manufacturers, as it is believed to be lower in quality than virgin plastic and fails to meet specific requirements.

“In many cases, however, products do not need such rigid specifications and, in reality, a wide range of different grades of a polymer or even different blends of polymers may work well in certain applications,” a spokesperson for the firm stated.

Blenders can be used to create a PE and PP mix, which are effective for crates, bins, buckets and a manner of other products.

However, to really move this process forward, there must be more collaboration between the businesses, Axion Polymers suggests.

This would help conduct trials to determine the physical properties of recycled polymers, with moulders working with recyclers to learn whether the material is suitable for its purpose, and recyclers working with manufacturers to get more reprocessed content into the products in the first place.

“Practical trials are the only way to truly understand the suitability of a recycled polymer,” Axion Polymers’ business development manager Mark Keenan commented.

What’s more, end markets need to be developed so they are stable and can create a drive for the other industries to work together.

If the process can become successful on a wide scale, it could have far-reaching results. For instance, sportsbrand Puma has shown the positive impact of recycling by collaborating with UK recycling company First Mile.

The pair have teamed up to produce sports shoes, T-shirts, jackets, leggings and shorts all made out of yarn that has been manufactured using recycled plastics.

It works by collecting plastic bottles from Taiwan, Honduras, and Haiti among other countries, cleaning them, shredding them and making plastic yarn that can then be used to create these garments.

Stefan Seidel, corporate sustainability specialist at Puma, stated: “All the apparel is made of at least 83 per cent to even 100 per cent from the sustainable yarn processed by First Mile.”

Around 40 tonnes of plastic waste was diverted from landfills and oceans for the Puma products, which amounts to 1.9 million plastic bottles.

Head of partnerships at First Mile Kelsey Halling was reported by Vegan News Now: “We hope that whoever buys this collection feels good about this purchase, not just in terms of choosing something that uses sustainable material, but knowing that those entrepreneurs in the First Mile are being connected to this product because it’s their material going into it.”

He added: “The more we can connect that last mile with the first mile, the easier this sustainable movement will be able to continue.”

Scotland is also hoping to do its bit to help the environment, by introducing a deposit return scheme for single-use drinks bottles.

The initiative will work by consumers being charged a 20p deposit for purchasing a beverage in a metal can or plastic or glass bottle. When they go to return the container to the store or collection point, they can get their money back.

This would make the drinks manufacturers responsible for recycling the packaging, as opposed to the consumer. They would then need to make sure the empty containers are collected for recycling.

While this scheme is designed to encourage single-use materials to be re-used, it could also reduce the amount of litter on the streets and in green spaces, as consumers are more likely to keep hold of the bottles or cans to get their deposit back instead of discarding them as litter.

What’s more, recycling processes require less energy than producing new materials, which means the initiative will help Scotland reduce its impact on climate change by lowering its carbon emission levels.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is a big supporter of better recycling, reducing waste, and putting an end to single-use packaging, particularly as this material costs a lot of money to make, remove, and destroy.

It hopes to increase recycling of these containers to more than 90 per cent by encouraging the government to implement the deposit return system on a wider scale.

Deputy chief executive of CPRE Tom Fyans said: “To boost recycling rates for all drinks containers – cans, glass and plastic bottles, cartons and pouches – the only option is for the government to introduce an all-in system.”

The organisation’s Green Clean event last year saw volunteers pick up 10,000 drinks containers left discarded over the course of a month.

However, more than a quarter of bottles might not be included in the initiative if the government gives in to pressures from the industry to restrict the deposit return scheme to an upper limit of 750ml for glass bottles and 500ml for plastic ones.

The Green Clean project, which was held across England, found 23 per cent of glass bottles were over this size, while 28 per cent of plastic ones exceeded 500ml.