Soft plastics burned not recycled an investigation by Everyday Plastic and the Environmental Investigation Agency, has found. Specifically, 70% of soft plastic collected in supermarket recycling schemes tracked after collection, ended up being burned.
Soft plastics burned not recycled came to light by placing trackers inside packages of soft plastic that were collected by Tesco and Sainsbury’s in July 2023 and February 2024. Subsequently campaigners found that most of them ended up being incinerated rather than recycled. Of 40 packages of plastic, the trackers reached correct destinations in 17 cases. Of these, 12 packages were used as fuel pellets or burned for energy, the investigation found.
Alison Colclough, of Everyday Plastic, said: “Our trackers reveal the hard truth about soft plastic recycling schemes at supermarkets – soft plastic packaging is not going to get recycled. The majority of the bundles of soft plastic we tracked ended up being burned for energy recovery – a solution that is being deployed more and more in order to deal with the unmanageable amount of plastic waste.
Campaigners believe that return schemes are being presented as a solution, which is diverting attention from the main issue that can’t be overlooked: far too much unnecessary plastic packaging is being produced in the first place. An accompanying legal briefing published by the environmental law NGO ClientEarth argued that supermarkets are misleading consumers about the environmental impact of soft plastic packaging, in breach of consumer protection law.
The Guardian reported that the UK sends abroad most of the plastic collected for recycling, exporting nearly 600,000 tonnes in 2023, a 10% increase on the previous year. In August 2023, nearly 53,000 tonnes of plastic waste was exported.Turkey is the largest destination for UK plastic waste exports in 2023, taking more than 140,000 metric tons. The Netherlands received the second most, at 116,500 metric tons.
Everyday Plastic want the UK Government to push for a cut in global plastic production by 40% by 2040 at the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations and beyond. They are also calling for Sainsbury’s and Tesco to publicly support this and you can sign their petition here.
Locally, please support our ACE plastic free campaign by contacting Rosie Sanderson at: rosiesanderson19@ gmail.com or visit the organisation Plastic Free.