Our friends at Everyday Plastic have been investigating the truth behind what actually happens to the soft plastic we recycle at our UK Supermarkets.

What do you think the supermarkets do with the soft plastics you recycle?

The volunteers at Everyday Plastic wanted to find out exactly what happened. So last year, they took 40 bundles of soft plastic packaging to various the collection points at both Sainsbury’s and Tesco supermarkets across England, with tracking devices planted inside to get the hard truth about our soft plastics. And the answers they found were shocking.

Of the soft plastic packaging waste collected for recycling that was tracked, 70% ended up being incinerated instead of recycled as promised. The remaining portion was sent to recycling facilities, mainly in Türkiye, where the plastic was downcycled into lower-value products.

Everyday Plastics then surveyed 10,000 people to find out if people knew what was happening to the soft plastics they were recycling. The results were:

• 46% of people didn’t know what happened once they recycled with supermarkets.
• 36% believed it was being recycled into a new material that can be used again.
• Only 15% correctly knew that it was incinerated, sent to a landfill, or dumped in the environment.
• And 3% believed it was turned into fuel for industry, such as cement kilns.

Because of the lack of information out their and the misinformation about exactly how much of our soft plastics are being burned or recycled oversees rather than what was originally believed, Everyday Plastic are now running a petition to call for the UK Government to support a cut in global plastic production by 40% by 2040. They want to eliminate unnecessary single-use soft plastic packaging all together before transitioning to universally designed reuse and refill systems, that wouldn’t rely on burning the soft plastics. The petition already has over 3,000 signatures in just a day. They also are calling for Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s to publicly support this change for the better.

You can Sign the petition here, and for more information regarding the misrepresentation of our soft plastic recycling schemes, you can check out the Everyday Plastics website for both a summary and the full report.

If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy these:

• Support the #Chooseloose campaign
• Help Everyday Plastic Fame and Shame Retailers
• Help Save Bees from Deadly Pesticides

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