In an effort to gradually move the UK towards a circular economy, the British government has invested GBP 22.5m (EUR 25.2m) in five centres run by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI; www.ukri.org) to explore the reusability of waste materials in textiles, construction, chemical and metal industries.

These interdisciplinary circular-economy centres aim to decrease negative environmental impacts while boosting the UK economy, UKRI noted. The idea is to promote resource savings and the reuse and recovery of products and materials instead of disposing of them. In April 2019, the UK government invested GBP 800,000 in a pigment removal project to boost rigid plastics’ recyclability (see Plasteurope.com of 09.04.2019).

The funding went to the following five centres:

• the Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Chemical Economy, which aims to reduce the UK’s GBP 32 bn chemical industry’s fossil reliance by creating methods to recover and reuse olefins from end-of-life products and CO₂ emissions
• the Interdisciplinary Textiles Circularity Centre, which will look into turning post-consumer textiles, crop residues and household waste into renewable materials for use in textiles
• the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Materials, which will explore how better design and manufacturing of products and structures made from mineral materials (aggregates, cement and brick) can help the construction industry reduce waste, lessen pollution and lower costs
• the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre in Technology Metals, which will explore the creation of a circular economy for technology metals such as cobalt, rare earths and lithium
• the Interdisciplinary Centre for CircularMetal, which will look at how metals can be recycled for use in aerospace, automotive and electronics sectors.

To reduce landfill and incineration, recycle waste into sustainable plastics, and expand the range of plastics being recycled, the UKRI recently invested GBP 20m (EUR 22.4m) in four UK recycling plants. This money comes from the “Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund”, along with GBP 65m (EUR 72.8m) of industry investment, to increase the recycling capacity in the country, UKRI said.

Technologies at these plants include a hydrothermal liquefaction process to convert plastics waste into chemicals and oils to manufacture new plastics, a thermal cracking procedure to transform end-of-life plastics into hydrocarbon oil that can be used in polymer production, and a depolymerising facility that extracts colour from waste for easier reuse.