According to campaigners Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic, the results of The Big Plastic Count “paints a dire picture” of the UK’s plastic use and waste management systems.
Globally, over 350 million tonnes of plastic are created each year, according to UNEP. Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic say that the “failure” to manage the waste this creates is having disastrous effects on human health and ecosystems worldwide.
Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic launched an investigation to understand with the scale of plastic use in the UK. The Big Plastic Count took place for one week in May 2022, with participants recording how much plastic packaging they threw in the bin or recycling, and what type. The results were then submitted to Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic for analysis.
248,957 people from 97,948 households across the UK took part in the count, including 9,427 school students and 36 MPs.
“A dire picture”
The results revealed nearly a quarter of a million people counted 6,437,813 pieces of plastic packaging waste in one week.
On average, each household threw away 66 pieces of plastic packaging in one week, which amounts to an estimated 3,432 pieces a year, Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic says.
If the totals for count week are assumed to be typical, the campaigners say this indicates that UK households are throwing away an estimated 1.85 billion pieces a week, or 96.57 billion pieces a year.
The most commonly counted items were fruit and vegetable packaging (1.02 million pieces), closely followed by snack bags, packets and wrappers (1.01 million pieces), illustrating how difficult it is for shoppers to avoid packaging when purchasing these products.
According to Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic, 12% of this plastic waste is likely to be recycled at reprocessing facilities in the UK. It says more of the UK’s plastic waste (17%) is being shipped overseas, a practice they are calling on the UK government to ban.
These figures paint a dire picture of the UK’s plastic use and waste management systems. This is a turning point for plastics in Britain.
They say almost half of the UK’s household plastic packaging waste (46%) is likely being incinerated, whilst the remaining 25% is buried in landfill.
62% of the pieces of plastic recorded in the count are either “not collected or poorly collected” for recycling by UK local authorities, and likely to end up in landfill or incinerated.
The report states: “These figures paint a dire picture of the UK’s plastic use and waste management systems. This is a turning point for plastics in Britain.
“More people than ever are aware of the scale of the problem and they want to see change. Fortunately, achievable and effective solutions to the crisis in the UK exist.”
“Potential benefits are massive”
The campaign groups are calling for the UK government to take a series of actions, including:
- Setting a target to “almost entirely eliminate single-use plastics”
- Ban plastic waste exports
- Implement an “all-in” (which includes plastic bottles of all sizes) deposit return scheme and extended producer responsibility
- Set an immediate moratorium on new incineration capacity.
Reducing single-use plastic packaging can fight food waste, transform shopping habits and stimulate innovation and new business models.
Daniel Webb, Founder and Director of Everyday Plastic, said in the report’s foreword: “The government is currently deciding on legally binding waste reduction targets as part of the Environment Act, but a specific plastic waste reduction target hasn’t been proposed. That’s simply not good enough.
“We need to reduce single-use plastic packaging by 50% by 2025 and urgently transition to reusable packaging which caters to everyone’s needs. This level of reduction will cut plastic pollution in our natural environment, generate much lower amounts of plastic waste being exported, landfilled and incinerated, and improve recycling rates.
“What’s more, reducing single-use plastic packaging can fight food waste, transform shopping habits and stimulate innovation and new business models. The potential benefits are massive.”
“Balance”
Responding to the report, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) said the export of clean and well sorted plastic is a “viable route for recycling” but that “in an ideal world it would be preferable to have materials reprocessed in the UK”. It also urged the need for balance when it comes to the plastic debate.
A CIWM spokesperson said: “We know that all local authorities have kerbside collections of plastic bottles and over three quarters now collect pots, tubs and trays. Under proposed packaging reforms, collections of films and wrappers will be brought in by 2027.
“There needs to be balance when it comes to the debate on plastic waste; whilst more can be done to reduce it, it also plays a vital role in preventing waste itself. Exports of clean and well sorted plastic is a viable route for recycling, although in an ideal world it would be preferable to have materials reprocessed in the UK.”
Alice Rackley, CEO of recycling technology company Polytag, said that reducing consumption is important, but to say recycling doesn’t work is “unhelpful”.
Her comments come after Greenpeace UK plastics campaigner Chris Thorne said in a statement that “pretending we can sort this [plastic pollution] with recycling is just industry greenwash”.
To dismiss the endorsement of recycling as “industry green-wash”, is unhelpful
Mr Thorne said: “We’re creating a hundred billion bits of waste plastic a year, and recycling is hardly making a dent. What else do the government need to know before they act?”
In response, Alice Rackley said: “Of course, reducing the amount of goods we consume is important, but to say recycling doesn’t work, and to dismiss the endorsement of recycling as “industry green-wash”, is unhelpful. Recycling has the potential to be a crucial weapon in the UK’s armoury, but it has been apparent for some time that unleashing this potential, and accelerating towards a packaging circular economy, requires the UK to invest in radical, transformative solutions.
“In the forthcoming deposit return scheme response, the government can do just this; by paving the way for a future-proofed, digitalised alternative that can work alongside reverse vending machines in a hybrid system.
“Digital deposit return schemes are not only integrated with the UK’s existing kerbside infrastructure, they also, thanks to Polytag technology, allow plastic packaging to be ‘tracked and traced’ through the circular economy.”
“Irresponsible”
The stance was echoed by Recycling Association’s chief executive Simon Ellin, who said the campaign groups behind the statements were “irresponsible” for saying recycling doesn’t work and for “sowing seeds of doubt in the public mind”.
He said: “These people are attacking the whole concept of recycling and not actually the problems that have led to not enough plastic being recycled. This is irresponsible by them.
“For decades we have seen products made from plastic that are hard to recycle, and that isn’t the fault of the recycling system, but those who designed and made these products in the first place.
“Thankfully, many responsible companies are now seeing the benefit of single-polymer type packaging, or single fibre alternatives, and are moving in a direction of using easy-to-recycle materials.
The idea that recycling doesn’t work is plain wrong, because we are close to sorting out the symptoms that made plastic recycling challenging, and fixing them to maximise our recycling of essential resources
“The Resources and Waste Strategy will mean companies will need to produce single material packaging and local authorities will need to collect them. When combined with the Plastics Packaging Tax that is already driving demand for recycled polymers, we have a situation that is leading to even more investment in recycling infrastructure.
“Of course, we need to reduce our use of plastic, as we need to reduce our overall use of resources. But plastic and other packaging helps to protect our food, our cleaning products, and ensures goods last. Where packaging is needed, made from a single material and optimised to use as little as possible, once used we then need to recycle it.
“The idea that recycling doesn’t work is plain wrong, because we are close to sorting out the symptoms that made plastic recycling challenging, and fixing them to maximise our recycling of essential resources.
“While we don’t currently have the recycling infrastructure in the UK to recycle all we create, it is vitally important that we send our recycling to state-of-the-art facilities abroad. With the new Basel Convention regulations, there are now very strict rules on the export of plastics and this means markets are largely limited to those who have the capacity to recycle our plastics.”
