Recycling plastic - real solution or marketing ploy?

Plastic pollution should be on everyone’s mind, with single-use plastic items such as plastic bags and snack and food wrap packaging being at the top of the list. These items pose a serious risk globally by destroying natural environments, creating unmanageable waste, and increasing health hazards.

A typical UK household generates 20 to 30 items of single-use plastic a week (most of which comprises soft plastic packaging such as film lids and food wrappers). This has led to an increase in calls for the consumption of more environmentally friendly and recyclable alternatives.

Tackling the ever-growing mountain of single-use waste has jumped to the forefront of global policy making, such as the UK Simpler Recycling legislation calling for improved waste separation from businesses. Increased awareness of single-use waste has also led consumers to rethink their plastic-buying choices when shopping at the supermarket or their local corner shop.

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Campaigns to raise awareness and influence public consumer behaviour have proven critical to the success of the most popular plastic management solution: recycling. The solution has been sold, marketed and popularised by both governments and businesses alike to instil environmental consciousness through media and public education.

But how successful is recycling as a strategy? And are UK households doing enough to help off-set the negative effects of plastic pollution? In April 2024, a survey conducted by Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic estimated that UK households discard 1.7 billion pieces of plastic per week. A large portion of the plastic packaging within that figure that has been accredited as “recycled” in the United Kingdom is actually making its way elsewhere, largely to Turkey, that allows exported waste to be included in recycling figures.This is due to a loophole in post-brexit regulations following a process of “prior informed consent”, a system that is open to abuse with Britain being the second-biggest producer of plastic waste globally.,  

This raises a final question: are green consumer choices really better than non-green ones?

Read more about packaging and supermarkets' greenwashing tactics in episode 2 of this 4 part series.

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Image: shelf of vegetables - Image by Firda Faradiba (ST ref: 1303)