Our latest campaign, Repeat the Cycle, is celebrating that many supermarkets are now collecting plastic bags and wrapping – like bread bags, crisp packets and loo roll wrap – for recycling at front of store collection points. But what does this mean for the state of plastics in the UK, and why should we recycle our plastic bags and wrapping?
Most of us cannot recycle plastic bags and wrapping at home. WRAP is working with governments and local authorities to increase the variety of collections from kerbside. In the interim, supermarkets are offering a collection point at front of store and we need your support to spread the word.
The big question on people’s minds will be what plastic can I now recycle at the front of store? The answer is soft plastics, plastic film, flexible plastics. This includes bread bags, frozen food bags, delivery bags, cereal liners, toilet roll wrapping, crisp packets, chocolate and sweet wrappers, fish and meat wrapping, yogurt and punnet lids, citrus fruit nets (without the metal clip) … The list goes on!
Recycle Now has a handy Recycling Locator tool to help you find out whether the packaging can be recycled in your area.
Whilst it is important that we reuse plastic, it’s also vital that work continues through initiatives like the UK Plastics Pact to eliminate any plastic packaging which is unnecessary or problematic. In fact, in February WRAP produced guidance for supermarkets on how they can remove plastic from their fresh uncut produce without this leading to the detrimental impact of food being wasted – much of this includes plastic bags that package our fruit and vegetables.
WRAP also recently conducted ground-breaking research into the relationship between plastic packaging and five fruit and vegetable items frequently wasted at home. I’m proud to say that Tesco is now following a recommendation outlined in our Reducing Household Food Waste & Packaging report. It will go a long way in helping to reduce plastic use and hopefully other retailers will follow.
Whilst supermarkets like Tesco introduce new ways to reduce plastic, we need LAs help in letting citizen know that they should reuse plastics where it is safe to do so, for instance by reusing plastic carrier bags as much and as often as we can. Further activity through The UK Plastics Pact is also exploring how refill options at supermarkets can become more widely available.
But where we can’t reduce or reuse plastics, then we need to recycle it, as recycling is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of a material after we can no longer use it.
The good news is that, by increasing the amount of plastic bags and wrapping that we recycle, the more demand there is to improve recycling infrastructure and create alternative ways of recycling the material.
It is important to ensure all the plastic bags and wrapping that we recycle at supermarkets is as clean as possible, as this will reduce contamination and make the material better quality for recycling. This will have a big impact on improving the recycling process, so it’s an important step to take.
Visit Recycle Now to find out more about how to recycle plastic bags and wrapping, and to search for your nearest supermarket collection point via the Recycling Locator.
Together, we can all make a difference by recycling.
