London Remade’s “Recycling Mixed Plastics” seminar was held at the Wellcome Collection building in Euston on Monday 29 September. I went along to listen and learn. It was good to see so many friendly faces in a very well attended event - there was standing room only at the back of the auditorium, emphasising how timely and interesting this subject is.

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During my internship at Pli, I have been conducting research into single source plastics. The aim of the project was to investigate sources of unmixed plastic waste for use in future Pli products, and in doing so outline a method by which a number of plastic sources could be identified.

The most lucrative future source of single-material waste streams is likely to be take-back schemes being conducted by electronics manufacturers. From in-store collections, old products could be sent to facilities where products are disassembled and sorted into individual materials for recycling. Currently, much WEEE is mixed before it reaches recycling points, resulting in poor quality recyclate.

It is important that manufacturers continue to grow and develop their take-back schemes so that batches of like products can be recycled before being mixed with other WEEE. Programmes like Apple’s, which offer a 10% discount upon returning old iPods, are a step in the right direction in encouraging higher volumes of WEEE to be collected. The benefit of WEEE being collected by the original manufacturer is that products of a single brand and materials will be present in large volumes and can allow recycling from single material streams.
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