Over 7 million meal deals are bought in the UK every day, generating a huge amount of flexible plastic waste from sandwich boxes, crisp packets, sweet wrappers, and coffee cup lids. Bywaters, together with our specialised flexible plastic recycling partner, offers an industry-leading solution for managing these notoriously difficult-to-recycle materials. We offer specialised collection containers to gather this waste, transforming it into valuable new materials and making the previously unrecyclable, truly recyclable.
This innovative approach closes the loop on a historically difficult waste stream. Instead of ending up in landfill or being incinerated, your flexible plastic waste becomes a valuable asset, ready to be remade into new products. Partnering with Bywaters means your business directly contributes to a genuine circular economy.
Flexible plastic refers to thin, pliable plastic materials that can be easily bent, stretched, or molded. Unlike rigid plastics (like bottles), they typically come in the form of films, bags, pouches, and wrappers. They are widely used for packaging due to their lightweight nature and excellent protective qualities.
Common examples include crisp packets, sweet wrappers, bread bags, frozen food bags, cling film, fruit and vegetable bags, pet food pouches, salad bags, and some coffee cup lids. Essentially, if you can scrunch it up into a ball, it’s likely a form of flexible plastic packaging.
Many flexible plastics are made from multiple layers of different types of plastic (e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, sometimes with nylon or EVOH) and often include other materials like aluminum foil or paper. These layers are extremely difficult to separate economically for traditional recycling.
Recycling flexible plastic offers substantial benefits, as it significantly reduces waste, prevents pollution of natural environments where flexible plastics can harm wildlife and break down into persistent microplastics, conserves natural resources by lessening the demand for virgin fossil fuels, and lowers greenhouse gas emissions by requiring less energy for production compared to new plastics, directly combating climate change.
