Over the past five years, reducing waste in the manufacturing industry has become a large focus for the UK government.

It launched a policy document in 2010, which included concerns over packaging waste and producer responsibility regimes, reports Warehouse News.

The government aims to hit the targets outlined in this policy document by the end of this year and in particular it hopes to boost the recycling of recovered waste by 68.1 per cent.

Fast Pak Packaging has looked at some of the biggest pushes towards sustainable packaging that have occurred so far.

One of these has been a 'circular' approach to packaging in terms of reusable and sustainable packaging, which has had environmental improvements and cost-saving benefits for businesses.

However, the main initiative by the government for last year was the 5p tax on plastic bags, which has led to an 80 per cent reduction in usage in the UK.

Warehouse News believes that as manufacturers will work further towards a 'circular' approach of recycling and as consumers continue to respond to using less bagging for their shopping, the industry will see waste collection levels drop due to the correlated lack of usage of non-recyclable products.