ISCF SSPP Collecting flexible plastic packaging waste at home

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £250,000 from the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Programme.

The aim of this competition is to fund projects that will develop innovative ideas to help with the collection of flexible plastic packaging waste from households. The ultimate goal being the reduction of the amount of waste ending up in landfill or in the environment.

The selected projects will have the opportunity to develop their concept, and then present and prototype their idea as part of a nationwide trial to collect flexible plastic packaging waste from UK households.

Your project must:

• develop an idea and propose a design for containing or collecting household flexible
• plastic packaging waste that is easy to store in the home and easy to carry or transport
  encourage householders to collect flexible plastic packaging waste as a separate waste stream for kerbside collection or for transporting to collection points in supermarkets

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £25,000 and £50,000
• start by 1 September 2023
• end by 29 February 2024
• last between 3 and 6 months
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You will be made ineligible if you have exceeded the £315,000 Minimal Financial Assistance limit during the current and previous 2 financial years.

You must submit a complete declaration as part of your application.

Lead organisation

To apply your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, a charity, or a ‘not for profit’.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.

You must also provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you.

We expect all subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

Number of applications

You can only apply into this competition with 1 application. We will only award grant funding to 1 project per business or organisation.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund projects that will develop innovative ideas to help with the collection of flexible plastic packaging waste from households. The ultimate goal being the reduction of the amount of waste ending up in landfill or in the environment.

Your project must:

• develop an idea and propose a design for containing or collecting household flexible
• plastic packaging waste that is easy to store in the home and easy to carry or transport
  encourage householders to collect flexible plastic packaging waste as a separate waste stream for kerbside collection or for transporting to collection points in supermarkets

Functional and technical requirements

Your proposed containing or collecting solutions for household flexible plastic packaging waste:

• must be easy to use by all householders and must take into consideration equality, diversity and inclusion
• must be easy to clean if designed for multi-use, or be able to be recycled along with the collected flexible plastic packaging
• should reduce the volume so that more flexible plastic packaging waste can be stored in a manageable space
• must not reduce the flexible plastic to small parts, and flexible plastics must remain as separable items for onward sorting
• would ideally be designed to encourage the collection of as much material as possible
• should be strong enough to take the wear and tear of regular use and be kept in the home environment for extended periods and have a multi-year service life, if designed for multi-use
• should consider the durability of any mechanisms, such as compression
• if your solution is short-lived or single use, you must justify this approach in terms of carbon footprint and end of life
• must be recyclable past useful life

The project should take into account the following considerations:

• available space within typical UK households
• typical UK weather conditions if being placed outside
• manufacture from recycled plastics is encouraged
• price per unit, containers may be bought by individual households or in bulk for local authority issue
• aesthetics, the design should be pleasing so as to encourage its use as a waste collection system within the home

We encourage the use of human-centred research and design principles, working in new ways and involving hands-on customer and user research as a means of informing and testing novel ideas.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects:

• that do not focus on the collection of existing flexible plastic packaging waste arising in the UK
• that develop alternative packaging materials
• that involve heating or melting the flexible plastic packaging waste to condense it
• that involve sealing the flexible plastic packaging waste in plastic bags
• that involve primary production in fishery and aquaculture
• that involve primary production in agriculture
• with activities relating to the purchase of road freight transport
• not allowed under De minimis regulation restrictions
• not eligible to receive Minimal Financial Assistance

Key dates

22 February 2023 – Online briefing event: Watch the competition briefing webinar recording
27 February 2023 – Competition opens
12 April 2023 11:00am – Competition closes
15 May 2023 – Applicants notified

Background

The Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge aims to establish the UK as a leading innovator in smart and sustainable plastic packaging for consumer products. Its goals are to deliver cleaner growth across the supply chain, with a dramatic reduction in plastic waste entering the environment by 2025.

Among the various activities it funds, the SSPP Challenge is supporting the FlexCollect project which trials flexible plastic packaging waste collections from households in a number of local authorities.

To encourage greater levels of flexible plastic packaging waste recycling in the UK, a user-friendly container is needed for in-home use to encourage the household to adopt plastic film recycling.

The container and associated approach of storage and collection should encourage all members of the household to use it as a means to collect flexible plastic packaging waste and not put them within household black bag waste.