Precious Plastic Plymouth and Tavistock CIC

Organisation Bio

We are a community plastic recycling initiative who recycle Plymouth plastic waste into bespoke products in Plymouth creating a circular economy of plastic.
We gather waste plastics from the community and recycle it at The Plot on Union Street. We have various shredders including one attached to an exercise bike which people can ride and use their own energy for recycling. We melt the shredded plastic in a small injection moulder and create bespoke new products from Plymouth waste. We also press the plastics into 50cm square sheets which can be used as splash backs or milled into furniture components. We make smaller items such as jewellery and clocks from 3D printer waste. We recycle polyethylene, polypropylene and PLA-3D printer waste.
We are very interested in promoting behavioural change towards waste and ocean plastics. We run fun, creative workshops and demonstrations for all ages. We start conversations and open people's eyes to the possibility of what we can use waste for, seeing it as a resource rather than a problem.
We feel that a resilient community should be working towards self sustainability and recycling our plastic waste into new products is an empowering step towards this.
We collaborate with many other community interest, and sustainability groups as well as larger organisations such as The University of Plymouth, Arts University Plymouth, Plymouth City Council, The National Marine Park and Nudge Community Builders.

Product/Services

engagement

What we provide

We offer exciting recycling workshops, demonstrations and team building days. You can recycle your own waste plastics with us at your business or at our workshop on Union Street, Plymouth.
Our creative recycling set-up is fun and engaging for all ages.

We are building a bespoke product making facility to make merchandise, plastic parts, clocks, furniture and other items from Plymouth plastic waste.

We can recycle your clean polyethylene, polypropylene and PLA-3D printer waste.

Contact us for more information about workshops, products, waste collection and recycling services on hello@preciousplasticplymouth.co.uk

About our climate journey

We have recycled around 100 kg of plastic since we started in 2021
we have run around 40 workshops and demonstrations
We have interacted with around 1000 people, starting conversations around plastic recycling and waste

We would like to grow our reach and recycling capacity.
We are finding it hard to continue to run our project in the current difficult financial climate.
We have scaled back from moving into a new workshop in C103 because we cannot afford to do this, however this would significantly increase our capacity and the impact that we could have.

We are excited that we have a small pot of funding from The National Marine Park Blue Sparks programme to run ocean plastic recycling workshops attached to beach cleans of the Sound over the coming summer.
We aim to try to build our team through this initiative and hope that it may attract some more financial backing to help us grow and consider moving into C103.

Our climate journey

COMMITTED TO NET ZERO?
CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATED?
CLIMATE ACTION PLAN WRITTEN?
MONITORING IMPACT YEARLY?
PLAN TO BE NET ZERO BY...?

2026


Biggest climate achievement to date

Building our exercise bike recycler in collaboration with University of Plymouth Indigo project and with support from Prof Richard Thompson OBE FRS lead of UoP Marine Litter Research Group.

This has saved significant energy from electricity by using people's energy. It has also increased engagement and gives people a sense of empowerment, and ownership making them feel that they have the ability to change things.

Most difficult climate challenge faced

Finance. Our project is just holding on financially, we are always in danger of closing down. We give much of our time voluntarily and we cannot afford to grow our business.

Best climate advice or tip for others

Collaboration is the key.
As a community we need to work together. We need to think carefully about what we value and we need to take a longer view.
There are many fabulous individuals and small enterprises trying to make a difference. We are working together and we have much more strength and resilience as a team.

Precious Plastic Plymouth and Tavistock CIC posts & projects