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Plastic Waste Management Tool

The
Challenge

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The EPSRC Evolving A Circular Plastic Economy (ECPE) Project, part of the University of Hull’s Plastic Collaboratory, was set up to tackle one of the world’s biggest problems.

It takes about 400 years for a polyethylene bag to degrade in a landfill site. The persistence of plastic waste in the environment, and the reliance of fossil derived polymers for their creation, are unsustainable. The project worked with a number of stakeholder groups, including retailers, who were looking for realistic ways to reduce their use of plastics.

The
Approach

The Approach

The Logistics Institute, in collaboration with Morrisons Supermarkets Plc, has developed a cloud-based Decision Support System (DSS) for tracking and managing plastic usage and waste collection, recycling and/or disposal.

The DSS allows you to:

  • Identify, visualize and track plastic usage between business units of a supply chain

  • Map the forward and backward linkages between sites, distribution centres and waste collectors

  • Upload various waste data and generate individual site reports and analytics

  • Track collection and disposal of various waste types (plastic, food, general, mixed recyclables)
    • Total waste generated
    • Proportion recycled or landfilled
    • Plastic revenue generated
    • Waste disposal and transportation cost incurred
  • Aggregate key performance indicators (Site Costs, Monitor target waste vs Actual waste Cost, various time series waste plots) at Head Office or individual site level

 

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The Impact

The tool can be used by all retailers to track their progress towards their plastic reduction target pledge. It has received positive feedback from WRAP, the agency responsible for implementing the UK’s 2025 Plastic Pact Pledge, who would like to see an application for industry-wide adoption of such tools.

More Info

Project Team:

Prof Nishikant Mishra, Prof Gunjan Saxena, Dr Sushma Kumari, Dr Roland Getor, Vikash Sharma, Quynh Do

For more information, please contact:

Roland Getor (R.Y.Getor@hull.ac.uk)