A list of the UK’s “top plastic recycling towns” has been compiled by high street beauty brand The Body Shop.
The list has been published to coincide with the announcement of two new plastic initiatives – Return.Recycle.Repeat and Community Trade recycled plastic – which are part of a bigger goal for the retailer to become a more sustainable brand with recycling being one of the first steps.
By 2030, The Body Shop aims to be using three types of plastic instead of 20, making it easier for consumers to recycle its products, it says.
Also, with Return. Recycle. Repeat. and other schemes, The Body Shop will collect 25% more packaging than it sells.
The new in-store recycling scheme aims to help reduce plastic waste and is available in almost all of the UK stores.
There’s also an added bonus incentive of a £5 voucher for returning five empties.
Top plastics recyclers
With the launch of this new sustainability initiative, The Body Shop says it wanted to look into the UK’s plastic recycling by researching plastic recycling habits in each town and city.
With this, The Body Shop has created a list of the top 20 plastic recycling towns and cities in the UK.
The information was compiled by analysing the amount of plastic collected for recycling from every town and city in the UK between 2017 and 2018 using wastedataflow and cross referencing this with the population to create a plastic recycling index.
Based on this index, the north-west town of Wigan has been named as the top plastic recycling town in the UK with over 9,000 tonnes of plastic being sent for recycling between 2017-18.
Wales that leads the UK with the most towns and cities making the top 20 list
It’s Wales that leads the UK with the most towns and cities making the top 20 list and two (Bridgend and Swansea) making the top three.
In total the Welsh sent 43,877 tonnes of plastic for recycling between 2017-2018 which weighs 3.5 times more than the Severn Bridge.
With over 2,000 tonnes of plastic recycled, Derry is showed to be the best place in Northern Ireland for plastic recycling, coming fifth in the whole of the UK.
Northern Ireland contributed 26,033 tonnes between 2017 and 2018, which could build the Albert Memorial Clock 13 times, dwarfing the treasured landmark.
Two Scottish places made the top 20 with Stirling placing seventh and Falkirk at nineteenth. Combined, these two places recycled over 3,500 tonnes of plastic.
Yorkshire also did well, boasting four of the top 20 towns and cities for plastic recycling – Hull, Barnsley, Middlesbrough and Rotherham.
