Robotic arms, artificial intelligence and a machine that can melt down crisp packets and cling film could all increase the UK’s recycling capabilities tenfold over the next decade.

The new technologies are being trialled by some of the country’s biggest recycling companies as worries over the plastic waste crisis mount.

One company has developed a machine which can melt down plastics that cannot currently be recycled, including cling film, crisp packets and plastic pouches. This uses pyrolysis to convert mixed plastics back to an oil, which can then be used to make new products.

This process takes a mixed bag of plastics, heats it in an oxygen free environment, it breaks up the long hydrocarbon chains into shorter chains. This eventually creates a wax.

Recycling Technologies, based in Swindon, has now sold one such machine, the RT7000, to a local authority in Scotland and hopes to transport this across the UK. They say this machine alone could double the UK’s recycling capabilities by 2027.