Britain missing out on potential £2bn recycling industry by exporting plastic waste

Exclusive: Government failure to close loophole allows 600,000 tonnes to be shipped abroad each year

A plastic recycling industry potentially worth 2bn and 5,000 jobs is dying in the UK because of government failure to close a loophole that allows 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to be exported each year.

The Guardian can reveal that in the past two years 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down due to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap plastic from Asia, according to data gathered by industry insiders.