Two competitions launched by the government agency are geared at supporting firms that can help the the UK meet its 2025 Plastics Pact targets
United Kingdom Research & Innovation (UKRI) has announced it will dish out £24m to firms with innovative ideas that can help reduce the amount of plastic waste that contaminates the UK environment by 2025.
The funding is to be split across two competitions over the coming months, with £16m for a competition for expressions of interest for large-scale commercial projects and £8m for a competition for business-led research and development projects.
Both competitions are being run through UKRI's Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge and are specifically aimed at supporting the goals the UK government has committed to meet under the Plastic Pact spearheaded resources charity WRAP.
The Pact wants all plastics packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025, with all "unnecessary single-use packaging" eliminated from the plastics value chain altogether.
It also wants to see 70 per cent of plastics packaging recycled or composted by the same date, with all plastic packaging having an average of 30 per cent recycled content.
Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging programme director Paul Davidson emphasised the intiative was aimed at funding projects that can deliver "real-world benefits" in reducing plastic waste and had already backed the development of four large-scale recycling plants.
"We are now looking to further our support in 2021 with £24m investment," he said. "By investing in projects ranging from reducing plastic packaging to behaviour change, we can help deliver results to reduce plastic pollution."
Projects applying for either competition need to explain how they would reduce the UK plastic packaging system's overall environmental impact, according to UKRI.
Projects that focus on minimising or reducing plastic packaging, on delivering sustainable solutions for film and flexible packaging, and on driving consumer behaviour change that leads to less packaging waste or higher recycling rates are among the areas UKRI singled out as being of particular interest, alongside refillable packaging and food-grade recycled polypropylene and polyethylene schemes.
The 'SSEP Demonstrator Round 2' competition for large-scale commercial demonstration projects opens on 8 February. The competition is open to collaborations only, with a full-submission competition set to follow the expression of interest stage in May. Grants available from the follow-on submission will range from £1m and £12m.
The 'Business-led R&D Projects' competition will open on 29 March for research and development projects. It is open to collaborations and projects, and the maximum grant available will be £4m.