At the production stage: 50% recycled content
The grocery bag LCA studies that form the scientific backbone of our environmental case assumed virgin plastic — no recycled content whatsoever. The environmental advantage of plastic over paper and other materials was demonstrated without any recycling credit at all.
Our air cushion films contain 50% recycled content. That means half the raw material demand is eliminated before the product even reaches your warehouse. Half the energy required to produce virgin polymer. Half the fossil fuel extraction. Half the production stage emissions.
This is not a marginal improvement. Adding 50%recycled content to an already low-impact material creates a production stage footprint that is significantly better than the baseline the studies used — the baseline that already comprehensively out performed other materials.
It also means our films are exempt from the UK Plastic Packaging Tax, which applies to plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled content. Our films exceed that threshold by a considerable margin.
There is a broader point worth making here too. Paper is frequently presented as inherently recyclable and therefore environmentally preferable. But paper can only be recycled between three and seven times before the fibres are degraded beyond use — each recycling cycle shortens the fibre and reduces the quality of the output. HDPE, by contrast has been demonstrated to retain good mechanical properties across multiple recycling cycles. The recyclability advantage of paper over plastic is considerably narrower than the public narrative suggests.
At the end-of-life stage: a three-tier picture
The LCA studies assumed the worst case: plastic goes to general waste. As we explored in piece 4, even in this scenario the environmental outcome is better than it sounds — HDPE has one of the highest calorific values of any common household material and generates meaningful electricity and heat when processed through energy from waste (EfW) infrastructure. This displaces producing new energy.
But general waste is only the floor. FGP's films have two further end-of-life pathways available, and both are improving.
Soft plastic collections — available now
All major UK supermarkets operate in-store soft plastic take-back schemes: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, M&S, Aldi, Lidl, Co-op, and Iceland all accept soft plastic film at designated in-store collection points. All soft plastics are accepted in these schemes — deflated HDPE air cushion film included.
The UK's Simpler Recycling legislation originally mandated curbside soft plastic collection for all English households and businesses by March 2027. In July 2026, the government confirmed this deadline has been pushed back to 1 April 2030, citing concerns from loca authorities about the readiness of domestic processing infrastructure and end markets for the collected material. The direction of travel remains firmly set— the mandate exists, investment in sorting and reprocessing infrastructure is accelerating, and the 2030 date provides a longer runway for that infrastructure to develop. South Gloucestershire Council became one of the first authorities to roll out curbside soft plastic collection to all households from August 2025, demonstrating that the practical capability exists where the will and infrastructure are in place.
It is worth being honest about where the system currently stands. A 2024 investigation found that a significant proportion of material collected through supermarket take-back schemes was being incinerated rather than genuinely recycled — a consequence of processing capacity not yet having caught up with collection capacity. This is a transitional issue that the 2027 mandate is actively driving investment to resolve. Incineration through EfW is still a significantly better outcome than landfill — and considerably better than the worst-case assumption in the LCA studies — but genuine recycling is the goal, and the infrastructure to deliver it is being built. Quick note too, the landfill issue applies as much to other materials too, no more so than paper. With so much paper junk mail, which could be seen as zero-use and worse than single-use, a staggering amount of it ends up in landfill. Landfill acts like a tomb due to no expsoure to air, light and UV meaning paper like any material takes a very long time to decompose.
Material in any managed collection stream, even if it ends up being incinerated rather than recycled, is not littered. The only genuine environmental criticism of plastic packaging — visual pollution and the risk of entering waterways — is addressed the moment film enters any managed waste stream.
Return 2 Recycle — available today from Forever Green Packaging
For customers who want to close the loop completely without relying on developing infrastructure, FGP's Return 2 Recycle scheme is available now. We send prepaid mailers; customers return deflated used film; we ensure it is properly processed through a confirmed recycling stream rather than general waste. We take responsibility for its end of life, and make it easy for our customers and customer's customers to do their bit. The bigger picture of what's green needs a linked up approach between material choice, collective good practice and habits, and improving infrastructure. Even as the latter develops, it's still easy for us to collectively make a small effort to avhieve a massive environmental benefit.
This is the tier three outcome — genuine recycling, available today, for every FGP customer who participates. It doesn't require waiting for the 2027 mandate or relying on local authority provision. It is the circular outcome that the LCA studies' worst-case assumptions didn't credit, available as a practical reality.
Why both matter
The environmental case for FGP's air cushion films is not a single argument. It is a stacked series of advantages, each of which strengthens the others.
The LCA baseline — established across multiple and anincreasing number of independent studies — shows HDPE polyethylene already wins comprehensively against paper, even assuming virgin material and no recycling. Our 50% recycled content improves the production stage significantly beyond that baseline. Our HDPE material exceeds the average result of the studies, which covered both HDPE and LDPE variants. The 99% air composition of an inflated cushion means the material comparison to paper is barely meaningful. And the end-of-life trajectory — EfW at the floor, soft plastic collections available now, genuine recycling through Return 2 Recycle — moves in one direction only.
At every point in the lifecycle, FGP's films perform better than the studies' baseline assumptions. And those assumptions already demonstrated a comprehensive environmental advantage over paper.
That is what genuinely sustainable packaging looks like — not the packaging that sounds greenest, but the packaging that, at every stage of its life, places the least burden on the planet.
References: UK Plastic Packaging Tax (HMRC);Simpler Recycling legislation (DEFRA); South Gloucestershire Council kerbsidesoft plastic collection, August 2025; supermarket soft plastic take-backschemes; paper fibre recycling cycles: Shattering the Plastics Illusion, Dr.Chris DeArmitt PhD, FRSC, FIMMM; HDPE recycling cycles: Benoit et al., Progressin Rubber, Plastics and Recycling Technology, 2017; 2024 investigation intosupermarket take-back processing, multiple sources.