Lithium batteries are notoriously difficult to recycle. Impact have identified a process (CellMine) which will allow the Cathode metals to be suitable for recycling. As a result a large volume of batteries which was previously sent to landfill, incinerated or lost into the environment will be recovered and could be reused in new batteries. As the popularity of electric vehicles starts to grow explosively, so does the pile of spent lithium-ion batteries that once powered those cars. Industry analysts predict that by 2020, China alone will generate some 500,000 metric tons of used Li-ion batteries and that by 2030, the worldwide number will hit 2 million metric tons per year. At home in the UK, the Faraday project predicts Britain will have 3 fully functional gigafactories running by 2030, creating up to 6500 cells per day. This equates to a potential 2000 tonnes of battery waste at end of life-- 730,000 tonnes per year, leading to 1.8m t/CO2 of extra GHG emissions. With demand for lithium, cobalt and other metals set to grow and companies looking at deep-sea strip mining, a commercial solution to recover and reusing these metals must be found to meet future demand and prevent the further destruction of our environment. Without commercially viable methods for recycling lithium ion cells the UK risks these being lost or dumped in the environment where the heavy metals contained within them risk leakage into the environment as well as this scarce resource being lost. Benefiting from CellMine technology the UK will aim to prevent this battery waste from ending up in landfill sites up and down Britain or being housed in hazardous waste storage facilities, possibly located in socially deprived areas. CellMine's ambition is to create a new industry in the UK. An industry that will provide jobs and financial stability for families up and down the UK. It will help propel Britain to the forefront of green technology innovation, closing the loop on battery recycling.

The project will build an open data standard and prototype portal spanning the complete plastic packaging life-cycle, from design to recycling/reuse. This project will reduce the impact that plastic packaging has on the environment by: \*Making it easier for citizens to know how to properly recycle their plastic packaging and make informed choices; \*Provide accurate, useful data to manufacturers and retailers at the point of product development so they can make better material and design decisions with end of life in mind; \*Help policy makers and regulators monitor progress towards recycling and Plastic Pact targets and inform future measures. To enable this the project will deliver five main outputs: 1. Prototype open data standard for plastic packaging; 2. Prototype portal to enable the reporting of the format and composition of plastic packaging being placed on the UK market; 3. Extension of the current open data standard on HWRCs to cover all geographical recycling points for plastic packaging; 4. Prototype portal to enable the reporting of all recycling points (local authority and commercial) for plastics packaging; 5. Clear plan for the next phase including determining the correct governance and financial sustainability models. Initially focused on plastic packaging, the design will be such that other materials can be added in the future. The initial focus on plastics will enable the targets of the Plastics Pact to be met, address public concern over the use of plastic materials in the environment, and support each part of the value chain to comply with their obligations under Extended Producer Responsibility and Plastics Packaging Tax. The project team, led by OPRL, brings together a highly skilled multi-disciplinary team of professionals with the necessary expertise and reach across the entire value chain. We will work with a wide range of stakeholders along the whole plastics packaging value chain to ensure our solution works for all. Key benefits include: \* Easy to use update mechanisms to ensure that the data is not a one-time snapshot of the circular economy, but a reliable, up to date description of its current state, updateable by key stakeholders; \* Management information and support for analysis providing a range of different queries on the data -- specifically queries showing progress against the Plastics Pact targets; \* Robust and secure data control measures to safeguard commercially sensitive data while ensuring as much data as possible is available for sharing among stakeholders or published to the open to increase collaboration and transparency.

This project is aimed at understanding more about the relationship between plastics recycling communications and behaviour change. What works, what does not, in a live lab situation supported by experts from across the plastics recycling value chain and delivered by plastics recycling member-based charity, RECOUP. It is accepted that citizens remain confused as to what can and cannot be recycled with regard to plastics packaging. This type of packaging is complex, different shapes, sizes, and colours all of which provide a challenge when it comes to giving clear and unambiguous guidelines. To give plastics packaging a second life and recycle into new products relies on the consumer doing their bit. If not placed for recycling then the packaging is lost, the resource is wasted, and it has the potential to pollute the environment. This will result in more virgin plastics will be used. In order to invest in UK infrastructure and drive end markets to a circular economy the supply of feedstock via kerbside systems needs to be high quality and quantity. It is crucial that we are able to drive the UK domestic market and the industry is no longer reliant on unstable export markets. In 2019 the UK exported (61%) 688,000 tonnes of plastic packaging for recycling. This project is aimed at engaging with citizens to reduce their confusion of plastics packaging and will use different communications methodologies and evaluate their effectiveness both in terms of tonnage rates, contamination and consumer perception, as well as taking account of socio economics and service provision. Citizens surveys will be conducted throughout the project to assess citizen understanding and evaluate communication effectiveness against investment, recycling rates and contamination levels. The project will be delivered by RECOUP, in Kent, across 13 Kent Councils (630,000 homes, 1.5m citizens) in partnership with Kent Resource Partnership, PPS Recovery Systems Ltd, Veolia, Viridor, Ecosurety, Plastics Europe and the British Plastics Federation, in a unique piece of industry led practical research and demonstration of value chain commitment to increasing plastics recycling capture and reduction of plastics pollution. The project is also supported by OPRL, Ocado, and WRAP. The resulting learnings from the project will be used to produce a blue print/best practice that will be produced that can be used in a national programme to educate on plastics recycling and drive plastics recycling recovery rates to 2025 PACT targets.

"Whilst plastic packaging recycling rates have been improving across Europe they still remain low at only 35%. With tough new government targets to come into force requiring 65% of plastic waste to be recycled it is essential new technologies are developed to allow recyclers to extract value from this waste economically and meet these targets. Currently this value has come from simply separating plastics into material groups with the majority of material being of mixed colour. Our project aims to develop a new method for extracting value form this waste plastic by developing a process which can remove the pigment dispersed within the plastic returning it to a natural-recyclate. In doing this recyclers would be able to double the resale value of their mixed coloured plastics making more waste economically viable to recycle and giving manufacturers, molders and producers access to greater quantities of natural-recyclate for use in products. The project will build on a previously successful InnovateUK feasibility study which showed pigment could be removed from PE and PP at a lab scale using a novel designer solvent and high-shear mixing technique. Our consortium will target removing pigments from waste plastic packaging which makes up approximately 85% of plastic waste and develop this technology (PolyMet) through to a demonstration plant scale at TRL7 ready for full scale setup post project. This technology fits well within the UK governments new regulatory push for improved recycling in the next decade and will place the UK at the forefront of plastic recycling. The environmental and social benefits from this technology are significant: increased recycling rates will reduce plastic's carbon foot print by reducing our reliance on new plastic production and reduce waste plastics leaking into the environment through poor waste management. There is also a significant trickle down effect into the circular economy with a recent Deliotte study showing that 75 jobs were created for every 10,000 tonnes of recycle produced. Ultimately PolyMet will allow recyclers to realise the maximium value from their feedstocks, allowing it to be used in a greater number of secondary application and allowing our society to move closer to a plastic circular economy."