Businesses can apply for a share of £800,000 to look at
innovative designs for products, services or business models that
make plastic use more sustainable.
The world produces around 350 million tonnes of plastic every
year. Europe recycles about 40% of its plastic waste. Some of the
rest goes to landfill or for incineration and some still leaks
out into the environment.
Better design of products, processes and services is one way of
reducing the environmental impact of plastics. However, the
design must be one that consumers and users will want to adopt
and it needs to fit with the way they behave.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, has up to
£800,000 from the Plastics Research and Innovation Fund, to
invest in business projects that seek to better understand the
behaviour of customers and users and use that understanding to
create innovative design concepts.
Projects must base ideas on customer research
Projects must develop design concepts that do not rely on
single-use plastic using customer and user research. They could
look at redesign of existing goods, services or business models
or design of entirely new ones. The design concept should
prioritise reuse of products and extending the life of products
over recycling.
If a project is looking at ‘design for recycling’ then it must be
compatible with existing recycling technology and infrastructure.
Design could include contributions from engineering, materials
science, service design, circular design and systems thinking.
- the competition is open, and the deadline for applications is
at midday on 16 September 2020
- businesses of any size may apply
- we expect projects to range in size between £20,000 and
£80,000 and last between 3 and 6 months
