Freegard highlights need for fiscal rewards to stimulate better recycling design

Keith Freegard has outlined the need for a fiscal or monetary system as an incentive for designers to use easy-to-recycle packaging. 

Speaking on BBC News on August 4, Freegard was responding to new analysis from the Local Government Association (LGA) highlighting two thirds of plastics sorted by consumers for collection cannot be recycled. 

He said that a financial incentive to make products recyclable would “force manufacturers which make less easily recyclable packaging to pay more money.” 

The LGA blames the findings of its analysis on manufacturers for using mixed and poor quality polymers and says that producers need to work with councils to prevent materials that limit recycling from entering the system. 

It also says producers should pick up the costs of collecting and disposing of plastics that are unrecyclable. 

The head of the Recycling Association, Simon Ellin, told the BBC that manufacturers do have a "big responsibility" and "have got away with it for too many years", but said that "local authorities need to take responsibility as well".

"We have nearly 350 different collection systems up and down the country," he told the programme. "There's widespread confusion, the public don't know how to use it, it's underfunded and it's the proverbial dog's dinner, to be honest."