WRAP has opened the second round of funding from its £20 million Plastic Research and Innovation Fund (PRIF), with grants of up to £150,000 available to projects which “trial ways to implement refill infrastructure”.
An Expression of Interest for the funding is now open with a closing date of 6 August.
The grants are available for projects which trial new ways to implement refill infrastructure (Pictured: Refillable packaging for dishwasher powder)
The schemes entered for the competition must be business-led and collaborative between different groups, organisations or individuals, and must be completely new and untried in the UK.
The resources charity said that successful projects will have strong commercial potential to reduce the use of single use primary plastic packaging.
Assessors are looking for inventive proposals that will “challenge the status quo and change the way retailers and their suppliers operate, so that their customers have new options to buy products in refillable containers”.
Peter Maddox, director of WRAP, said: “The first round of this competition identified innovative projects that will bring huge benefits in terms of reducing and recycling plastic waste. Now we are concentrating on the crucial role that re-usable and refillable packaging formats have to play in this respect. I am excited to see what new solutions will be created as a result.”
Funding
The £20 million fund is being managed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Innovate UK, with delivery by WRAP.
The fund was announced by then science minister Sam Gyimah in 2018, and it aimed to explore ideas and innovations that could initiate changes in the UK’s plastics manufacturing and consumption patterns.
“We are concentrating on the crucial role that re-usable and refillable packaging formats have to play”
Around £1 million of funding was announced in May 2020, with the Technology Research Centre and RPC Containers Ltd awarded the highest grant, receiving £307,030 for a contaminated film separation technique (see letsrecycle story).
‘Challenges’
Paul Davidson, challenge director at UKRI, said: “UKRI’s challenges are all about fostering cooperation between government, industry and academia and we hope to see some truly innovative and collaborative submissions to this challenge. This competition will contribute to our overall goal of establishing the UK as a leading innovator in sustainable plastic packaging techniques and of delivering cleaner growth across the whole supply chain”.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
