Plastics and rubber manufacturing is well covered on the BICS eligible-sector list — it includes plastics and synthetic rubber in primary forms, rubber tyres and tubes, plastic plates, sheets, tubes and profiles, and other plastic products. The AND-rule still applies: your specific products must fall under eligible HS codes. The main trap is for recyclers — output that stops at mixed-polymer flake or sorted regrind can fail the HS gate even in a listed sector.
Plastics is one of the better-covered sectors: primary-form producers and finished plastic-product manufacturers are both listed. The place the AND-rule bites is at the recycling end, where the product form decides whether you’ve genuinely manufactured a qualifying output.
Does plastics & rubber qualify?
These plastics and rubber activities are on the eligible-sector list:
- Plastics and synthetic rubber in primary forms — pellets, resins, granulate.
- Plastic plates, sheets, tubes and profiles, and other plastic products — e.g. mouldings, extrusions, formed components.
- Rubber tyres and tubes, including retreading and rebuilding.
Each still needs the product to sit under an eligible HS code (the AND-rule), which a specialist confirms — but the sector coverage itself is broad.
The one place to be careful is recycling: a recycler whose output stops at washed mixed flake or unsegregated regrind can fail the HS gate. Convert that flake into a single-polymer primary form and the same site can pass. Product form, not sector, resolves it. See the AND-rule breakdown →
Site mix & evidence
Plastics sites often run a qualifying process alongside warehousing, assembly or finishing. Support is pro-rata to the eligible share above the 25% floor, so isolating the moulding or extrusion load with clean sub-metering directly defends your band.
What it's worth
At an indicative £37/MWh on eligible consumption, a 12 GWh plastics manufacturer is in the region of £445,000 a year before site-mix scaling, plus the one-off backdated payment to April 2026. See the full savings table →
Plastics or rubber manufacturer?
We resolve the product-form question and send a band-by-band summary within 24 hours.