How much of your recycling is actually recycled?
It's a question many of us have asked on bin day – how much of our houeshold recycling is actually recycled, and how much is sent to landfill or burned?
Recycling rates are actually falling in some areas of the UK. New efforts such as a bottle deposit scheme and a move to standardise recycling could help to change this – with the government saying that previous systems were 'muddled and confusing', and leaving consumers with the prospect of having to understand up to seven bins.
Yahoo News spoke to recycling expert Rachel Watkyn, CEO of Tiny Box company, who believes that recycling efforts in the UK are "lagging significantly" behind other European nations.
She argues that when people realise that recycling is not actually being recycled, it risks creating a vicious circle where people choose to recycle less.
"This causes a self-perpetuating circle, where households see recycling being put in the same lorry as general waste, knowing it is not going to be recycled, so they stop separating, which means the recycling percentage declines," added Watkyn.
Recycling in England has got worse in recent years, with the rate of recycling dropping to 43.4% in 2022 from 44.1% in 2021, the lowest it has been for at least eight years, according to statistics from Defra.
The situation is better in other parts of the UK, with 56.9% of household waste recycled in Wales and 49.2% in Northern Ireland. Scotland's recycling rate (42.1%) is even worse than England's.
However, it is hard to keep track of figures in the UK, because recycling is decentralised, and local authorities are responsible for processing and sorting waste, Watkyn explained.
This is also why the different bins for recycling can vary from place to place.
Recycling rates vary widely between councils: the best-performing is South Oxfordshire, which recycles 61.6% of all waste, and the worst performing is Tower Hamlets, which recycles just 17.7% of all waste.
'Each council has different facilities, so the numbers vary widely across the nation," Watkyn says. "Putting this into perspective, Germany leads with approximately 68% being recycled and the average in the European Union is 49%.'
There are several factors that limit the amount that is recycled in the UK, Watkyn explained, from local policies to a lack of recycling facilities.
Waste that is put in recycling bins but for which there is no nearby recycling facility, will be disposed of in different ways. This can include being burned, buried or sent abroad. Some can be incinerated in the UK to create energy.
Glass bottles and metal cans are much more likely to be recycled, while the waste that is least likely to be recycled is plastic, Watkyn says, with just 12% recycled in the UK.
'The figures vary dramatically by recycling type. Glass and metal can be recycled indefinitely and facilities are more widespread in the UK," she said.
'Plastic however, is a different story with nearly half of the UK's plastic waste incinerated for energy recovery, 25% is sent to landfill and only about 12% recycled within UK reprocessing facilities."
The government is bringing in new measures to standardise recycling, with a view to improve the situation.
Its Simpler Recycling scheme, which comes into effect on 31 March 2025, aims to encourage businesses to separate and recycle waste into glass, metal, plastic, paper and food waste, with food waste bins mandatory from 2026.
The scheme also aims to ensure there is no 'postcode lottery' around recycling so that different councils have the same rules around what is recycled.
The government's Deposit Return scheme also aims to reduce can and bottle waste: Consumers will be paid to recycle plastic and metal bottles and cans under a new bottle-return scheme set to come into force in 2027.
Members of the public pay a deposit on drinks bottles, which is then refunded when bottles are turned in for recycling.
In England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, consumers buy an estimated 30 billion single-use drinks containers each year – including 12 billion plastic drinks bottles and 13 billion drinks cans.
The other option, according to Watkyn, is for consumers to vote with their wallets.
According to polling by YouGov in February 2024, 71 per cent of people believe supermarkets and retailers use too much packaging. In addition, 88 per cent believe only recyclable material should be used, and that it should have clearer labelling.
The Local Government Association, which commissioned the research, said at the time: "Everybody can see the levels of waste, across our shop shelves, delivered to our homes, and into our bins. Councils see it every day and spend millions dealing with it.
'We support reforms for packaging producers taking responsibility for meeting costs and in helping further reduce and recycle packaging waste, it is crucial that the costs are met and that councils continue to lead local waste and recycling services.'
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