Disheartening Reality of the Recycling Scam
The UK produces an exorbitant amount of plastic packaging waste (such as food and snack wrappers and single-use plastic bags).In 2024, the UK produced an estimated 2.3 million tonnes of plastic waste.
Only 17% of that plastic waste was recycled, while over 58% was burned in incinerators and the remainder was sent to other countries to be dumped in landfills, according to The Big Plastic Count by Greenpeace.
Despite increased customer awareness of plastic packaging’s harmful effects
and public calls for more sustainable products, disposing of plastic sustainably remains complex. Greenwashing misleads ecologically aware consumers by encouraging them to buy “recyclable” products containing either LDPE and other unrecyclable materials. Even when products are recyclable, they are often too contaminated to be recycled, not properly categorised during waste pick-up, or only recyclable under very specific conditions that UK recycling plants cannot create. The gap between consumer perception and actual impact is known as “plastic blindness”.
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In the UK, we face a lack of capacity for the million tonnes of plastic pollution we produced each year, impaired by the recent closing of 21 plastic recycling and processing facilities, as reported by ENDS Waste and Bioenergy. Petrochemical (plastic) and fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, and INEOS are among the most powerful and profitable businesses. These companies constantly lobby for the continued production of plastic. They are so powerful that lobbyists outnumber many national delegations, scientists, and indigenous activist groups fighting to stop plastic pollution. This allows petrochemical and fossil fuel companies to influence international and local laws, making the path towards progress a slower, more difficult one.
It is predicted that plastic production will triple by 2060, with only 9% of all plastic ever made being recycled.
Read more about packaging and supermarkets' greenwashing tactics in episode 6 of this series.
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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk
Image: excavator at waste disposal site - Image by Tom Fisk (St ref: 1421)
ID 240550-C
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