Soft plastic recycling

[Yellow Saddle]

When you say soft plastic I'm assuming your meaning shrink wrap type plastic or similar. Company i work with recycles all plastic packaging and shrink wrap. It goes to our shrink wrap supplier who reprocess it somehow into new shrink wrap. Suspect its only a percentage that goes back in to the new stuff.

Does your company work with one or more type of soft plastics?

 

[bikingdad90]

Supermarkets get a kick back by a likely payment from recycling companies who take the plastic from them. Effectively the super market operates as the middle man. Gets plastic for free and earns money on it.

 

[PaulSB]

Your sceptism is well-founded. Around 14% of plastics put into UK recycling bins is actually recycled. I haven't seen a figure for soft plastics but I'd expect it to me minuscule.

It is high time that we stop the greenwashing and start burning the stuff in high-temperature incinerators.

This, with varying numbers, is frequently made statement. Do you have a source I could look at. As an avid recycler I would like to learn more.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

This, with varying numbers, is frequently made statement. Do you have a source I could look at. As an avid recycler I would like to learn more.

As per Chat GTP:

As of 2025, only about 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled globally, and the UK reflects similar challenges with soft plastics

1
. Specifically for plastic packaging waste, which includes soft plastics like wrappers and bags, the UK's recycling and recovery rate reached just over 52% in 2023
2
. However, it's important to note that this figure includes both recycling and energy recovery (e.g., incineration for energy), not just material recycling.


When it comes to actual recycling of soft plastics alone, the percentage is significantly lower. Estimates suggest that less than 10% of soft plastics are effectively recycled in the UK due to difficulties in collection, contamination, and lack of processing infrastructure

Also, there are similar stats on: nationalrecycling.co.uk and statista.com.


You will find various guestimates, even from statistics aggregators, however, the number is always low.

The economics of recycling is a bleak picture. It is more expensive to recycle than to create from new. There is only one source of funding for recycling and that is you and I.

My view is that it is time to rethink but that won't happen until we stop greenwashing the issue.

 

[MontyVeda]

One day when you have time, take a look at the economics of recycling. Also take a look at the reality of your local council's recycling activities. Get the latter through a FOI if you don't believe what they write on the website.

Remember, no matter how green people want to be, when it costs money, only a small percentage of people will pay the price for being green.

That is the fundamental problem. In a capitalist world, if something doesn't make a significant profit, then why bother?
It's better to clog up the oceans, pollute the skies and chuck it in a hole in the ground.
Ain't capitalism great.

 

[Alex321]

I don't think there's anything in it for the supermarkets other than complying. The council gives them (or tells them to get) a big bin for soft plastics.
The standard rubbish bin at the exit has been replaced with 4 recycling bins.
It would be easier if the local council could take soft plastics along with the hard stuff, but i guess that's a budgeting issue.

Our council (Vale of Glamorgan) started a pilot scheme for kerbside recycling of soft plastics in April for some areas of the authority. Hopefully, if that is successful, they will roll it out to the rest of us in a few months, though it isn't much hassle to take it with us for our main supermarket shop each week.

 

[Alex321]

As per Chat GTP:

As of 2025, only about 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled globally, and the UK reflects similar challenges with soft plastics

1
. Specifically for plastic packaging waste, which includes soft plastics like wrappers and bags, the UK's recycling and recovery rate reached just over 52% in 2023
2
. However, it's important to note that this figure includes both recycling and energy recovery (e.g., incineration for energy), not just material recycling.


When it comes to actual recycling of soft plastics alone, the percentage is significantly lower. Estimates suggest that less than 10% of soft plastics are effectively recycled in the UK due to difficulties in collection, contamination, and lack of processing infrastructure

Also, there are similar stats on: nationalrecycling.co.uk and statista.com.


You will find various guestimates, even from statistics aggregators, however, the number is always low.

The economics of recycling is a bleak picture. It is more expensive to recycle than to create from new. There is only one source of funding for recycling and that is you and I.

My view is that it is time to rethink but that won't happen until we stop greenwashing the issue.

None of that backs up your initial statement that " Around 14% of plastics put into UK recycling bins is actually recycled. "

If as much as 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled, I would expect the figure for what is actually put into the kerbside recycling bins/bags to be MUCH higher than 14%.

And that suggestion that less than 10% of soft plastics are effectively recycled is almost certainly because there is no kerbside collection, and I doubt very much that even as much as 15% of that produced actually gets to the supermarket recycling points.

My council claims to recycle over 70% of what is collected - though we do have to separate our recycling - one canvas (re-useable) bag for paper, one for cardboard, one for (hard) plastic & metal, plus a caddy for glass, one for food waste, and a small bag for batteries.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

For such a populous urban area that Southampton City Council covers, the amount of recycling material they don't want in the recycle bin is pretty awful IMO.

https://www.southampton.gov.uk/bins-recycling/recycling/what-can-i-recycle/

 

[Alex321]

For such a populous urban area that Southampton City Council covers, the amount of recycling material they don't want in the recycle bin is pretty awful IMO.

https://www.southampton.gov.uk/bins-recycling/recycling/what-can-i-recycle/

That is really bad. There are loads of the things on that list they list as "general waste bin" that would be collected in one of or recycling bags here. Mostly the plastics & metals bag - Tetrapaks, clothes hangers, plastic egg boxes, just a few examples.

 

[Drago]

Monsigneur Saddle raises a valid point.

These initiatives aren't "green" as oft portrayed. The are no better than slightly less harmful to the alternative.

The only genuinely green alternative is to buy less unnecessary tat.

 

[presta]

There was an interesting series on Radio Four a year or two ago about just how much of the recycling industry is run by organised crime, and that includes corruption in the councils themselves. I can't see how it will ever be different when fly tipping is cheaper than responsible disposal.

It ought to be an absolute priority to make all waste disposal free at the point of use by funding it with a levy on the purchase price of everything, but even that won't remove the incentives for corruption once the waste has gone through the gates of a recycling plant.

I wish I was confident that it actually gets recycled.

It was our recycling sacks from Braintree District Council that Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall found on a fly tip in Malaysia a few years ago.

Potatoes, brocolli, bananas, hard fruit, etc, etc, don't need to be wrapped in plastic.

Apart from forcing people to buy more than they need, it also stops them from cherry picking the pretty stuff and rejecting the ugly ones. It got worse after HFW criticised the supermarkets for rejecting ugly produce.

 

[MontyVeda]

... it isn't much hassle to take it with us for our main supermarket shop each week.

Absolutely... but i keep forgetting to take it on my way to the supermarket. Doubly annoying is the fact that i work there

 

[Alex321]

There was an interesting series on Radio Four a year or two ago about just how much of the recycling industry is run by organised crime, and that includes corruption in the councils themselves. I can't see how it will ever be different when fly tipping is cheaper than responsible disposal.

But it isn't.

It is free to take it to your local recycling centre. Which will usually be within 10 miles.

 

[PaulSB]

As per Chat GTP:

As of 2025, only about 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled globally, and the UK reflects similar challenges with soft plastics

1
. Specifically for plastic packaging waste, which includes soft plastics like wrappers and bags, the UK's recycling and recovery rate reached just over 52% in 2023
2
. However, it's important to note that this figure includes both recycling and energy recovery (e.g., incineration for energy), not just material recycling.


When it comes to actual recycling of soft plastics alone, the percentage is significantly lower. Estimates suggest that less than 10% of soft plastics are effectively recycled in the UK due to difficulties in collection, contamination, and lack of processing infrastructure

Also, there are similar stats on: nationalrecycling.co.uk and statista.com.


You will find various guestimates, even from statistics aggregators, however, the number is always low.

The economics of recycling is a bleak picture. It is more expensive to recycle than to create from new. There is only one source of funding for recycling and that is you and I.

My view is that it is time to rethink but that won't happen until we stop greenwashing the issue.

Without wishing to be rude I had hoped for something more substantive. This is just a super computer scraping information from the web. No examples, citation etc. I don't trust or believe any AI generated information.

My local council, made up of individuals I helped elect, some I know personally, state our local recycling rate is 47%. The BC website also details exactly where the waste goes. I feel the figures Chat GPT are providing are unrealistically low and misleading. It's artificial but is it intelligent? No.

 

[biggs682]

Supermarkets get a kick back by a likely payment from recycling companies who take the plastic from them. Effectively the super market operates as the middle man. Gets plastic for free and earns money on it.

That's my thoughts as well