Reading and North Herts Councils join FPF FlexCollect

The UK’s largest flexible plastic household collection and recycling pilot, FPF FlexCollect expands into two new local authorities – Reading Borough Council and North Hertfordshire Council.

On 14 November, North Herts Council joined the pilot project, enabling over 2,200 households across Knebworth to collect and recycle flexible plastic bags, sachets, packets and wrapping as part of their regular kerbside recycling collections.

The pilot in Reading, managed in partnership with re3, began on 18 September with over 4,000 households and flats in the town centre.

With the addition of these two new local authorities, there are now seven local authorities and over 28,000 households across the UK participating in the FPF FlexCollect pilot.

Preparing for compulsory kerbside collections

In light of the Prime Minister’s recent announcement concerning ‘Simpler Recycling’, it’s even more important that local authorities understand how flexible plastics can be best integrated into current household recycling collections, and what ‘efficient and effective’ collections look like. The FPF FlexCollect pilots aim to understand the challenges of recycling flexible plastics, so they can be more easily addressed once widespread implementation starts.

FPF FlexCollect began in 2022 and will run until 2025. The project is now almost halfway through the project timeline and key findings in an interim report will shortly be released.