Plastic firms 'need incentive to make recyclable packs'

Manufacturers of plastic packaging need a financial incentive to make their products recyclable, the industry body has suggested.

Keith Freegard, from the recycling group at the British Plastics Federation - the leading association for the whole of the plastics industry - said there is currently "no fiscal or monetary system in the UK that makes designers go for the really good-to-recycle designs".

He said the system should force manufacturers which make less easily recyclable packaging to pay more money.

It comes as the Local Government Association revealed that two-thirds of plastic food containers cannot be recycled.