Each month, we gather the Greyparrot team for a “lunchtime learning” session at our London HQ. This month, we had questions about the plastic system: what’s working, which materials still pose a recovery challenge and where should we be applying waste intelligence?
To find the answers, we invited WRAP’s Senior Plastics Specialist Adam Herriott to join us for lunch. As one of the UK Plastics Pact’s technical leaders, Adam has been instrumental in shaping a functioning circular economy for plastics.
Working at the intersection of brands, regulators and the waste sector, Adam offered an incredibly valuable perspective on the progress towards plastics circularity, and the role AI has to play in its future.
Why does the plastic system need to change?
We began with the basics: why should we focus on plastics in the first place? Adam outlined the scale of the plastic waste crisis, and the coordinated response it demands:
Plastic is accumulating in the environment and in our bloodstreams. It’s been found at the highest points in the world, and as deep as the Mariana Trench. To address a problem that large, we need change across the supply chain — from cross-industry plastics pacts to consumer behaviour.”
He noted that there’s popular support for a move away from the “take-make-dispose” economy:
Our research has found that around 70% of the UK population think plastic is an important issue … We find that people want to recycle more generally.”
What does a circular plastic system look like?
Importantly, change doesn’t mean abandoning plastics altogether. The UK Plastics Pact sets out to tackle problematic materials by “capturing their value by keeping them in the economy and out of the natural environment.”
Adam doesn’t envision a future without plastics, noting that their full lifecycle is often lower than fibre alternatives that can release methane in landfills — and which Greyparrot Analyzer data showed was the vast majority of residue material in 2024.
In fact, sticking with plastic packaging for one product led to one WRAP’s biggest circularity successes:
HDPE milk bottles are arguably one of the most circular kinds of packaging in the UK, if not the world. Working with the dairy supply chain, we established a recycling process that generates high-quality material — and we now see an 80% recycling rate for those bottles in the UK. Those bottles are also around 40% recycled content.”
At scale, collaboration between producers and recyclers is making a measurable impact on the plastics system. Since 2018, WRAP’s global Plastics Pact network has:
- Eliminated 360 kilotonnes of unnecessary plastic packaging
- Driven a 9% increase in plastics recycling, and a 23% increase in reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging
- Seen a 44% increase in recycled content being used for packaging
Despite six years of encouraging progress, Adam noted that there’s still work to do if we want to achieve full circularity.
What’s preventing plastics circularity?
For Adam, transparency remains a major challenge — particularly when it comes to public perception of recycling. Without comprehensive data on the true fate of our materials, it can often be challenging to combat narratives that “recycling doesn’t work”:
People have seen articles about materials like flexible films not being recycled, which remain a key challenge until we can collect and recycle them at scale. With that being said, it’s wholly misleading to suggest that the entire system doesn’t work. Often, people just see plastic, they don’t see the different polymers: PP, HDPE, PP, et cetera.”
Adam has also noticed a lack of transparency resulting in compostable and biodegradable plastics contaminating regular plastic streams.
Thankfully, he explained that insight into post-consumption material is clearing up confusion, noting that “there’s becoming more of an understanding about packaging design” amongst consumers.
That awareness is reflected in upcoming regulation, which Adam believes will drive much-needed changes in packaging design:
Extended producer responsibility will force brands to make sure their packaging is recycled. In Europe, PPWR will mean that you can’t put products in the market if they’re not recyclable by 2030. That’s going to be a fundamental shift for plastic packaging.”
How can waste intelligence accelerate plastics circularity?
Adam sees waste intelligence playing an important role in helping brands meet regulatory requirements:
[AI waste analytics] will be important because it helps us look at how design changes impact where that material went, and how efficient it was in getting to the right place.
That helps us build evidence for brands to show that we can bring down EPR charges with these changes.”
Combined with policy incentives, detailed data on the fate of plastic packaging is helping NGOs like WRAP make a clear business case for circular design changes like the adoption of monomaterials, which are far easier and more economically viable for recyclers to recover. The more accurate and up-to-date that data is, the better:
For us, it’s be really handy to get live data. Right now, we rely on last year’s data. With real-time insight, we have a much better handle on what’s actually happening, rather than acting 12 months later.”
Adam’s visit was an inspiring reminder of the impact that’s possible when producers, recyclers and regulators combine their efforts. When asked who should be the first to change, he had a clear answer — but stressed that each stakeholder needs to act together:
Brands have to change first. They can control what they’re doing, and consumers can’t, which why EPR is coming in thanks to regulators taking action. Waste managers can then respond, make the necessary plant configurations and support both policy and sustainable packaging design.”
Data-driven collaboration is transforming the plastics system – we’re already working with some of the world’s largest brands to reveal the true recyclability of their products. Waste data is bridging the gap between global recovery facilities and packaging designers, helping us ensure more products are designed to return to the circular economy.
Learn more about our work to accelerate packaging circularity with waste data here.
