LONDON, United Kingdom — Non-bottle plastic packaging like butter and yogurt tubs are typically made of polypropylene, a plastic identified by the number 5 resin code and refused by many recycling programs.

In the U.S. only a few city recycling systems and the collection program set up by Preserve at Whole Foods Market stores take in number 5 plastic for recycling.

In the U.K., there are even fewer options for what to do with the non-bottle plastics. But the government Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) is hoping to add that packaging to common recycling systems.

The group recently finished recycling trials showing that it is technically and commercially viable to collect the non-bottle packaging, reprocess it and manufacture it into new products.

To help make the collection and recycling of the packaging a reality, WRAP has launched a £2 million ($3.2 million) capital grant competition to build up recycling supply chain to handle more materials. The competition aims to increase the capacity of the recycling infrastructure in the U.K. by at least 40,000 tonnes (88 million pounds) per year by 2011.

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