As a society we now consume more of everything. But with consumption comes waste and with waste comes responsibility.

We only have one world and it’s up to all of us to look after it.

The plastics industry is more than aware of its responsibilities in a developing world. That’s why we are doing everything we can to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover our products.

But we can’t do it on our own. We need everybody to help us.

That’s why we’ve created this site. It’s an open forum where anyone can submit their thoughts and ideas and suggest ways that we can make the world a better place.

Our commitment is to lead the UK in diverting plastics from landfill by 2020 in order to reduce climate change impact, address the energy deficit, and achieve a step change in efficient use of resources.

We made this founding commitment at our launch which took place at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster on 7 July 2009.

We are delighted that Parliamentarians signed up to support our founding commitments on 7 July 2009 .

We made four more detailed commitments which are set out below and which will be updated and expanded over time as we make progress.

Founding Commitments

REDUCE

Reduce wastage and environmental impact by continuous innovation of lightweight, high performance plastic materials and products.

REUSE

Develop new solutions and designs to increase the reuse of plastic products.

RECYCLE

Double plastic packaging recycling rate by 2020 through working in partnership with the whole value chain and all levels of government to facilitate and promote effective markets, technologies and infrastructure.

RECOVER

Support high efficiency energy from waste techniques for end-of-life plastics where recycling is not an option

Click on any of the live debates to join in or click on the 4R’s on the right to see what we are currently doing to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover.

The Challenge

This site is part of a concerted effort by the UK plastics industry to engage the public in a nationwide debate about the use, reuse and disposal of plastics.

Plastics are now such an integral part of our daily lives that virtually everything we do and much of the food and drink we consume involves the use of plastics in some form or other. The range of fields and activities in which we use plastics is truly amazing from packaging, through manufacture of a hugely wide range of products to healthcare and agriculture. It has become the ultimate material for the 21st century and makes our lives possible in a way that could hardly be imagined without it.

But what do we do with the material after we have used it? Unfortunately discarded plastics have become a symbol of mankind’s waste of resources. Too much of the plastics that we use as a society are eventually thrown into landfill especially in the UK. This is a very bad habit and an inappropriate use of scarce resources both in terms of land and the plastics themselves. What is more, it is completely avoidable if we all thought about things differently. We probably won’t have any choice because the EU is raising the cost of putting rubbish into landfill to such an extent that by 2020 our bad habits will be costing all of us in the UK a lot of money out of our own pockets.

However, it does not have to be that way as with more thought we could reduce, reuse, recycle and recover plastics as a society much more efficiently than we do and avoid the need altogether for plastics to go to landfill.

This is a very desirable goal – but it also represents a challenge – a challenge for the plastics industry; for government policy; for although those manufacturers who use plastics in their products; for food manufacturers and retailers who use plastics in packaging; for environmentalist groups who advise us on how we should live, and ultimately for you as a consumer and human being.

That is why it is an important and very complex debate and why we think all voices should be heard.

Form your own views, let us know them on this site and get involved in the Plastics 2020 Challenge.