Deliver a new understanding of consumers' perception of recycled plastics, and strategies to permit recycled plastics to be used in the market more effectively, stimulating demand for recycled goods.
Deliver new systems to distribute, retail and consume fast moving consumer goods, cutting down the societal need for packaging.
Deliver new understanding of the systems needed to intercept plastic resources and promote revalorisation opportunities.
Combine waste plastic with waste paper to produce stiffer reinforced composites, upgrading the value of mixed plastics for advanced engineering applications.
Design additives that could be blended into existing plastics to enable or improve the chemical or microbial degradation of the polymers.
Create new, renewable diblock co-polymers capable of reducing the environmental impact of current polyolefin-based products by enhancing degradation and creating opportunities for upcycling.
Create new solutions for recycling multi-layer packaging, by controlling interlayer adhesion and modelling the impact of the microstructure on the mechanical properties of new and emerging packaging materials.
Create new chemo-enzymatic options for plastic depolymerization and monomer recycling, using novel reaction media and thermal stabilization of protein biocatalysts.
Map the fracture and microbial degradation mechanisms of new waste plastics in microbial communities, linking material design to anaerobic digester performance.
Identify policy interventions that will help achieve broader objectives such as pollution reduction, resource efficiency and recycling targets and create new design targets for recyclable plastic materials.
Identify multi-stakeholder policies to inform strategies to change purchasing, use, disposal or return practices to improve plastic flows, inform legislation and incentivise behaviour change.
