Most plastic collected for recycling is not allowed to be used for food packaging, mainly due to concerns about toxins and bacteria remaining in the finished product.

This has hampered plastic recycling in many parts of the country with many councils not collecting plastic at all, while most others (including all the West Sussex authorities) collecting only a selected range of plastics.

This could be about to change, with the news that a new plastic recycling plant is about to be opened in East London that will employ a so-called "bottle to bottle" process.

The process at the plant in Dagenham will deal with the toxins and bacteria present in previously used bottles by washing and putting them through a kiln at 200 degrees Celsius.

The plant is capable of accepting the most commonly used plastics as a mixed load.

After the sterilising and shredding treatments, the plastic flakes are then sorted using optical sorting technology, which works by determining the relative densities of the two types of plastic.

The success of the new plant could have welcome benefits for the plastic recycling industry.

Firstly, it will provide some much-needed domestic capacity at a time when a large percentage of plastic material is still sent overseas for reprocessing.

And it could have implications for the reprocessing of other types of plastic.

Assuming the process is successful, it could open the way for reprocessing other types of plastic commonly used for food packaging but little else, including polystyrene and polypropylene, used commonly for making margarine tubs and yoghurt pots.

This would be a very welcome development for householders and local authorities alike, as this material forms much of the non-recyclable fraction of the average dustbin nowadays.

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