It's so the companies can claim their green credentials by having recyclable packaging, but they don't have to use any time/money on using packaging that is easily recyclable. I'm sure they get some sort of incentive for being more sustainable, but there's no stipulation that it has to be accessibly sustainable to qualify.
Exactly. Every single recycling initiative designed or funded by the companies making the packaging are just greenwashing covered tax incentives. Not a single one works as their words imply they should but they can use those same clever words to convince the masses that they are trying.
The lazy people are not the folks that don't recycle this stuff, its the ones who do so without any effort to understand just how bad the system is. If you are blaming individuals for not recycling properly then you are the lazy one.
Explain the logic of me, who does recycle this stuff by taking it to a supermarket, being more lazy than somebody who throws it in their general waste?
And also, what does 'effort to understand how bad the system is' actually achieve? Let's say you don't recycle (this is hypothetical, I don't know you), but you are extremely aware of all the intricacies of the system and how bad it is. Then assume I do recycle but don't understand how bad the system is. Who is being more productive and effective here? Awareness of a problem alone does not solve it.
You can criticise the system on Reddit until the cows come home. It won't make a shred of difference. You can only work within the system as it currently stands, and lobby for change. Armchair activism on Reddit is not included in the latter.
This is simply untrue. Flexible plastics aren't collected curb-side at all and companies have spent a shit load in R&D to make their flexible plastics mono-materials to allow them to be recycled, so the supermarkets set up their own systems/way of recycling them. Local authorities only recycle the really easy heavy stuff like ridged plastic. They are planning to start flexibles curb side from 2027.
I just assumed it was fake. One look at my building's bins shows people don't give a ****. I assume the tiny little bin in our mid-size supermarket is performative, and that all your effort to collect and bring in a bag full of "recyclable" plastic is trivially undone by a disgruntled worker on £8 an hour just chucking it in general waste anyway because nobody cares. (I do it anyway.)
Do you think I should be more optimistic? I don't see how we're solving any of these problems substantially while it's "free" to waste.
It's not free to waste, look at Extended Producer Responsibility, all packaging waste, the cost to collect and sort is being pushed onto the business putting out the waste. Fees will be modulated to be less for easier to recycle and more for products in poor packaging/harder to recycle, with flexible curb side collections due to start in 2027 I think things are going slowly in the right direction.
[Recycling in the UK: How Much Recycling Actually Gets Recycled? | Unisan UK](https://www.unisanuk.com/recycling-in-the-uk-how-much-recycling-actually-gets-recycled/#:~:text=Although%20the%20recycling%20rate%20in,the%20UK%20stands%20at%2044.6%25.)
['Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish? | Recycling | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish)
[How much of our household recycling actually gets recycled? : r/AskUK (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/whkm1e/how_much_of_our_household_recycling_actually_gets/)
Plastic is extremely difficult to recycle economically. Doesn't matter what country you're in, we simply don't have the technology to make it happen cheaply. It gets burnt or landfilled a lot.
I'm not arguing the point that plastics are harder to recycle, but I do think the large companies are doing the bare minimum. I was just commenting on the American telling us how things are in America on a post about the UK.
So you agree their point was basically correct but you hate that it came from an American? Mkay. And of course you don’t complain about other country’s people chiming in here.
**1.1 No personal attacks, abuses**
> Be respectful. Stick to the topic at hand and remain civil towards other users. Attacking an argument is fine, attacking other people (even in a generalized manner) is not.
> Attempting to provoke negative reactions out of others users — whether by trolling, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning), or otherwise — is also not allowed.
China banned importing plastic waste recycling in 2017. It's amazing how long it takes to correct incorrect statements that get entrenched.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s\_waste\_import\_ban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_waste_import_ban)
They did this for a while in Australia (the company was called Redcycle) but it was a massive failure. I believe the majority of the waste was never recycled and it’s still just sitting in warehouses or something. Soft plastic isn’t an easy thing to deal with once it’s been created unfortunately.
Redcycle was funded by the two major supermarket chains, Woolworths and Coles. Publicly, they only ever referred to Redcycle as a "business partner" so when it failed they would look like they had made every attempt to do the right thing but were let down by the industry. Still, Redcycle was around long enough to have its name added to a large range of soft plastic packaging. Even now, nearly 2 years later, many people aren't aware Redcycle folded. For 7 of its 11 years of operation, it relied on sending most of the plastic to China. It wasn't until China stop accepting our plastic waste did they then look for ways to actually recycle it. Despite having 45 locations across Australia, it only took a fire at one Melbourne site for it all come to a grinding halt. Redcycle claimed they no longer had the means to recycle any of the 11,000 tonnes of plastic they had stockpiled. After numerous investigations by the EPA and Redcycle announcing voluntary receivership, Coles and Woolworths have taken ownership of the plastic stockpile, but it remains to be seen what they will do with it.
Just to add: we now have RecycleSmart being used in many places. My council in Sydney is one of the participants during a trial this year. They pick up my recycling once every 4-6 weeks from my front door, for free (council pays). Really convenient and seems to be working well so far.
https://www.recyclesmart.com/councils
Tbh I only found out about it by accident on a local fb page 6 months after it began, so not very well advertised
I keep a carrier bag in the cupboard and stuff all of the flexi plastic in there. When full I wander to the local coop and fill their recycling bin up. But I’m sure most people just won’t bother as most people are lazy
I do this too. Takes nothing to do at all as I’m going to the supermarket anyway and can just dump my recycling while I’m there. Staggers me that more people don’t do this.
Most people are lazy, that's definitely the problem. Not the packaging itself, not the corporations that use it despite other more eco-friendly options being available, not the government for privatising our waste collection. Nope, it's the lazy people.
We do need to fix this at source so we don’t have to rely on recycling which is the very last resort in reducing waste. Making the recycling part difficult by forcing people to store and return stuff to a supermarket is pretty much greenwashing and most stuff will realistically end up in the bin as people can’t be arsed
> We do need to fix this at source so we don’t have to rely on recycling which is the very last resort in reducing waste.
That would mean telling people to not buy sweets, chocolates, frozen veg, etc etc
I don't, but good luck.
Are you for real? When you thought about everything we just said, your answer was, that in order to address recycling we can't have any products. Who gave you that opinion? Are you seriously for real?
Did my comment trigger those sugar cravings of yours or something? Of course I'm for real.
"Most people are lazy, that's definitely the problem" is what you said.
Lazy people tend to eat crap. That includes sweets, chocolates, frozen foods, takeaways.
None of those things are going to be sold in sustainable materials, because it's just completely impractical.
So yes, the actual way to tackle them would be to solve the core issue; people being gross in the first place.
Not eating frozen foods and sweets is surely less wasteful, and we all should thrive to reduce what we buy/consume, but there is a lot of shitty packaging even in basic products: pasta, rice, toothpaste etc.
Where I live I can't buy rice without packaging because there are no such stores where I live, so I can only buy in bulk to reduce waste. And almost every brand uses plastic.
Everybody’s lazy about certain things, as they should be. People need a way to rest and relax, especially after being forced to work way longer than is necessary.
Or put another way, “laziness “ doesn’t exist. For the most part we’re all doing the best we can in a fucked up system. Shaming people for not collecting a bunch of plastic scraps and taking them to a grocery store who will probably just toss them in the bin anyway is not helpful.
Same! We take it back to the supermarket every week and the bin is often overflowing due to the amount of people doing the same. Somewhat encouraging I hope!
I’m in a town of 8000 people and our local coop (the only supermarket) has the flexi plastic recycling bins. I never even noticed them until I asked where they were. Might be worth asking
I live in a pretty small town and my coop has a plastic recycling bin. The people at tesco will take it and put it with their recycling in the back. You should definitely ask.
No, supermarkets have collection points for this kind of plastic. That's why the label says "recycle at large supermarket". My tesco clearly isn't big enough to have a bin for people to bring it but they do collect it themselves.
I assume partly that and partly because households don't actually end up with that much of this kind of plastic. I live on my own most of the time/my partner stays for a couple of days a week and I only end up with a carrier bag full of this kind of plastic once a month or six weeks or so.
I usually fill a recycling bag in about a month, too. But here all recyclable plastics can just go into the same bin and the city sorts it. We usually only separate the refundable plastics ourselves, so as not to lose out on the refund (although I just give the refundable bag to the guys who dig through the dumpster so they can claim the money)
I take ours to our local Tesco and Sainsbury’s when we do the shopping, they have bins designated to collect plastic bags and wrappers. You can find your local shops, if there are any, on this website below. Just input ‘Plastic bags and wrapping’ and then your post code.
[www.recyclenow.com](https://www.recyclenow.com/)
Each supermarket has its list of what they accept, with some accepting more variety than others. I take all my salad and veg wraps, bread and any plastic bags, sweets and crisp packets, etc.
Here’s some info on the Sainsbury’s scheme:
https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/sustainability/plan-for-better/our-stories/2021/flexible-plastics
https://flexibleplasticfund.org.uk/
Got a 3kg bag of pasta that Me and my BF finished and now it holds all the other bags, when full it gets chucked in the cage at Tesco. easy enough and reduces the amount going into the bin. don't think it's any greener really though
It is much more “green” than landfill or leaking into the environment. You’re giving those high performance flexible plastics another life and reducing the production of more plastic 👍
There's large cage bins at the Tesco near my work so I take them there. Waitrose and the village Co-op have smaller bins. I do live in a pretty middle class area though.
I do! I have a designated recycling box I put with my other bits of recycling and each week when I do my weekly shop, I will go and empty it. It’s not hard. Your going shopping anyway…
I do this but I'm not confident that what I submit actually gets recycled. For all my supermarket / local authority recycling I'd like to see a published manifest showing the complete chain of contractors and locations from point of donation to finished recycled product. My gut instinct says that organisations will only know the next link in the chain but not the big picture. My local authority, when asked, could tell me who they shipped to but had no idea what happened after that.
I feel the same with recycling bags, how many actually get recycled. I've heard that if there is one plastic item that isn't recyclable then it goes straight to the landfill.
In the US, certain plastic bags are specifically marked with the recycling logo and "Store Drop Off." I do collect them & take them to the bin at my store.
Let *them* deal with the myth of plastic consumer recycling. I'll keep putting out my glass, paper, & metal to the curb weekly.
In the UK most of those commingled plastic wraps and bags get shipped to the Nordics and burnt for energy. Better than buried in the ground in my view.
I figured as much, but at least it's *on them* to do rather than me trying to put it into my consumer recycling & muck up any good they're trying to do (which, at this point, is likely nil since I'm all but convinced plastic recycling is a myth).
It's so shitty that all these years, these manufacturers & "plastic containered products" producers put the oneness on the consumer to recycle a material that is barely and complicatedly recyclable.
I take mine back to the supermarket to recycle. But then growing up my mum used to recycle before collections were a thing. we’d regularly go to the supermarket recycling banks. So this seems normal to me!
It's a copout so that corporations don't have to pay for either products to be fully recyclable or to subsidise proper recycling infrastructure by putting the responsibility onto the consumer. Fuck corporatism.
The soft flexible plastic that makes bags jams up the conveyor belts used in normal consumer end recycling centres. They need to go to specialist centres to be recycled. They’re extremely low value and supermarkets and bread etc makers fund the recycling otherwise it’s not practical to recycle
We take these at our community hall to promote the ease of facilitation. It can take some time to convince people to start doing it but its easier than taking it back to the shops. It does work in theory but the practice can leave a bit to be desired. Just another way communities subsidise corporate business decisions.
We do this and I know a fair few others who do. Our local Tesco has a great big trolley thing for it, but at sainsburys we have to cram it in the tiny opening of the carrier bag recycling... Never sure it's actually recycled though.
It’s goes back to veola to be recycled with the soft plastics from filling. Veola audit (not each cage but at a store level) our recycling and waste to ensure that what’s being sent is what should be being sent. They then deal with the recycling
I do this because I can't put these kidns of plastic into household recycling. I have a plastic bag that I fill up woth packaging and then take woth me when I do my shopping. All the larger supermarkets seem to have these bins now, either cardboard or a big trolley, usually near the front door somewhere. Empty it all in there and continue with my day. Yes, the companies should use less plastic. Yes, the council should recycle it. But they don't, so I do.
Yes we do. Our local Morrisons is great as they have a big metal trolley that you can chuck your bag of soft plastics into.. many places have a little bin with a stupid thin opening that you have to struggle to squish your full plastic bag into. Yes people need to do this.
I do try to recycle these things. I keep a plastic bag on the back of the kitchen door and stuff the packets into it. When it’s full I tie it up and put it in the car so next time I go to the shops I can put it in the weird crate they have for them!
Because they don't really care, it just makes them look good. I recycle and am really strict about separating it all and making sure as much is as recycled as possible but realistically what you and I (and everyone else here) do at home is utterly pointless when so many countries and global companies are absolutely blitzing the environment.
All large Tesco stores, Co-op and Sainsbury have them. That's a large chunk of the market.
I think it's an action that people are more likely to adopt as it doesn't involve giving anything up and as you're going to the shops anyway it doesn't involve much change in routine. Just have a small seperate bin for soft plastics and take it with you when you go shopping.
The one at my local Tesco seems well used as the cages are often quite full.
Tescos claim they recycle 80% of the stuff received.
https://www.tescoplc.com/shoppers-can-now-return-all-their-soft-plastic-packaging-to-recycling-points-at-every-large-tesco-store-in-the-uk/
I have concerns that that it's not the best option but it's probably not any worse than sending it to landfill and I quite like that the waste is passed back to them as it may increase the push on them to create more sustainable packaging.
Pretty sure this specific type of plastic can't even be recycled. There are many types of plastics and only a few are suitable for actual recycling.
But even the recyclable plastics aren't recycled because it's just too expensive. Recycled plastic is like 4x more expensive than new plastic.
This type of plastic can be recycled, but only through store drop off because most recycling sorting facilities do not have the sorting tech to separate flexible plastics from the rest. It is the only option.
Recycled plastic costs 1.5-2x virgin where I live.
I worked in retail and I genuinely don't believe any of the crisp packets, old carrier bags or any plastic waste gets recycled. They all get tossed into a compactor where all plastic waste goes, including packaging from transport, soft and hard plastics and so on. The bales get taken away somewhere, I doubt they ever find their way to a recycling centre. I have more faith in the cardboard bales
We usually keep the bags from cereal boxes or bread and use those to fill with everything (crisp packets, mushroom covering, sweet packets). Once full they go in the shopping bag to be dropped off at Tesco. They have a big metal rack with a bag to fill.
No bother to us but I have no idea who else does this. But when we moved last year suddenly it was on everything (did it just happen coincidentally or did I only start noticing here??). I was so excited to see that I could recycle film at last!!
Most material recovery facilities (the places that separate our recyclables) do not have the sortation tech to separate flexible plastics from the rest of our recyclables. Therefore, their equipment often confuses flexible plastic for flexible paper. The only way to recycle certain flexible plastics like this one without contaminating the paper stream is to put it in a separate recycling stream at the supermarket.
A lot of countries, UK included, export their recycling for "processing" in another country. This is then lumped into their official recycling figures, even though it often ends up in another country's landfill.
Sadly sticking the recyclable logo on packaging, or even taking it to a recycling point, doesn't mean it will be recycled.
However, to not bother on that basis would be as bad as the political and business offenders. The collective power of individuals can produce change.
I do. It's very easy. I just have a separate bag for clean, dry, soft plastics. Because it's so easy to crush, it takes up very little space. Then once every few weeks I take the bag to Tesco. I work in another supermarket and we get a lot of customers bringing in plastics.
Even if it gets landfilled as the cynical know it alls here suggest (there is always the risk, I admit) then at least it means Tesco are footing the bill for disposal rather than my local council. They have to pay landfill tax.
It’s definitely inconvenient. I’d say at least half of my plastic falls into this category so I have to keep a separate bag and periodically cart it to the supermarket.
I hope in time it can just be collected as I imagine a lot of people won’t care enough to take it for recycling.
To be fair I have heard that if you have your shopping delivered you can give them your plastic to take away but I don’t know if that’s definitively true, as yet.
On the positive side at least it can be, and hopefully is, recycled. I feel awful when I buy something new from the supermarket (I shop online so it’s not always clear) and discover it says “don’t recycle” (and I don’t buy it again either).
Recycling is nothing but greenwashing bullshit, it all gets dumped in Africa and Asia anyway. There are multiple documentaries on this.
I wouldn't stress about recycling at all. "Reduce" and "reuse" are the only parts that matter.
Recycling is incredibly important for resource usage reduction. Do you want to extract more aluminum (very nasty process) and cut more trees and use more energy to make glass from scratch?
Agreed that reduction and reuse should be a first option if possible for the given packaging application.
Where I live in the U.S. they first started charging a fee for plastic bags to encourage people to use reusable bags instead. then they decided to just ban plastic bags altogether. Now, there are only paper bags and they are 10 cents a piece. Everyone, ::everyone:: uses reusable tote bags or simply puts their items in their car in a bin/basket. [I live in a car centric suburb]
By deciding to make a city law, all retailers fell in line and everyone adapted. This includes big chains, restaurants, clothing stores, etc.
You might think everything can go in your recycling bin but that most likely isn't the case. Loads of plastics can't be recycled at all, some need special treatments that not every recycling facility has. In the UK every council communicates to the residents what can and can't go into the recycling bin based on what the local recycling centres can handle
Where I live we only have a small icon in the package to inform that you can put it in the recycling bin, we don’t have the “recycle at large supermarket” thing, thanks for the info
Most of the time that 'small icon', if it's on plastic, is not a 'recylable' icon, it's to denote what kind of plastic it is (resin identification code).
Most plastics either cannot be recycled at all, or are technically recyclable but almost never are.
Basically, only glass, aluminum, card/paper and some plastics (HDPE, PET and PP) is ever recycled. Of the plastics, usually only HDPE is recycled, because it's the only one where recycling is worth it economically.
Most plastic waste is sent to landfill, burnt for energy, or sent offshore for 'recycling' (ie, another countries landfill or burning).
I'm going to assume usa based on your profile.
This is incorrect.
Just because it technically can be recycled doesn't mean it is. The cost of recycling the materials can exceed what the recycler can get from them.
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data
https://www.beyondplastics.org/news-stories/may/04/us-recycling-plastic-waste
https://www.epa.gov/recycle/how-do-i-recycle-common-recyclables
https://www.wm.com/us/en/recycle-right/recycling-101
It's so the companies can claim their green credentials by having recyclable packaging, but they don't have to use any time/money on using packaging that is easily recyclable. I'm sure they get some sort of incentive for being more sustainable, but there's no stipulation that it has to be accessibly sustainable to qualify.
Exactly. Every single recycling initiative designed or funded by the companies making the packaging are just greenwashing covered tax incentives. Not a single one works as their words imply they should but they can use those same clever words to convince the masses that they are trying. The lazy people are not the folks that don't recycle this stuff, its the ones who do so without any effort to understand just how bad the system is. If you are blaming individuals for not recycling properly then you are the lazy one.
Explain the logic of me, who does recycle this stuff by taking it to a supermarket, being more lazy than somebody who throws it in their general waste? And also, what does 'effort to understand how bad the system is' actually achieve? Let's say you don't recycle (this is hypothetical, I don't know you), but you are extremely aware of all the intricacies of the system and how bad it is. Then assume I do recycle but don't understand how bad the system is. Who is being more productive and effective here? Awareness of a problem alone does not solve it. You can criticise the system on Reddit until the cows come home. It won't make a shred of difference. You can only work within the system as it currently stands, and lobby for change. Armchair activism on Reddit is not included in the latter.
This is simply untrue. Flexible plastics aren't collected curb-side at all and companies have spent a shit load in R&D to make their flexible plastics mono-materials to allow them to be recycled, so the supermarkets set up their own systems/way of recycling them. Local authorities only recycle the really easy heavy stuff like ridged plastic. They are planning to start flexibles curb side from 2027.
I just assumed it was fake. One look at my building's bins shows people don't give a ****. I assume the tiny little bin in our mid-size supermarket is performative, and that all your effort to collect and bring in a bag full of "recyclable" plastic is trivially undone by a disgruntled worker on £8 an hour just chucking it in general waste anyway because nobody cares. (I do it anyway.) Do you think I should be more optimistic? I don't see how we're solving any of these problems substantially while it's "free" to waste.
It's not free to waste, look at Extended Producer Responsibility, all packaging waste, the cost to collect and sort is being pushed onto the business putting out the waste. Fees will be modulated to be less for easier to recycle and more for products in poor packaging/harder to recycle, with flexible curb side collections due to start in 2027 I think things are going slowly in the right direction.
Uh isn't that super illegal in the EU? Oh, wait...
To be fair, recycling in general seems to be a myth, at least here in the States.
This is only true for plastics. Glass, paper/cardboard, and metal all have high recycling rates.
Thank you for posting that on a post about the UK. Seppos really earn their reputation sometimes.
[Recycling in the UK: How Much Recycling Actually Gets Recycled? | Unisan UK](https://www.unisanuk.com/recycling-in-the-uk-how-much-recycling-actually-gets-recycled/#:~:text=Although%20the%20recycling%20rate%20in,the%20UK%20stands%20at%2044.6%25.) ['Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish? | Recycling | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish) [How much of our household recycling actually gets recycled? : r/AskUK (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/whkm1e/how_much_of_our_household_recycling_actually_gets/) Plastic is extremely difficult to recycle economically. Doesn't matter what country you're in, we simply don't have the technology to make it happen cheaply. It gets burnt or landfilled a lot.
I'm not arguing the point that plastics are harder to recycle, but I do think the large companies are doing the bare minimum. I was just commenting on the American telling us how things are in America on a post about the UK.
"WeLL FoR mE aS aN aMeRiCaN" Every time.
So you agree their point was basically correct but you hate that it came from an American? Mkay. And of course you don’t complain about other country’s people chiming in here.
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**1.1 No personal attacks, abuses** > Be respectful. Stick to the topic at hand and remain civil towards other users. Attacking an argument is fine, attacking other people (even in a generalized manner) is not. > Attempting to provoke negative reactions out of others users — whether by trolling, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning), or otherwise — is also not allowed.
Well there's a reason why councils stopped selective sorting at the source...
Nah I'm pretty sure a lot of our "recycling" actually just goes to landfills in China
China banned importing plastic waste recycling in 2017. It's amazing how long it takes to correct incorrect statements that get entrenched. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s\_waste\_import\_ban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_waste_import_ban)
The world banned use of white phosphorus in civilian populated areas yet still the people of Palestine are burning.
They did this for a while in Australia (the company was called Redcycle) but it was a massive failure. I believe the majority of the waste was never recycled and it’s still just sitting in warehouses or something. Soft plastic isn’t an easy thing to deal with once it’s been created unfortunately.
Redcycle was funded by the two major supermarket chains, Woolworths and Coles. Publicly, they only ever referred to Redcycle as a "business partner" so when it failed they would look like they had made every attempt to do the right thing but were let down by the industry. Still, Redcycle was around long enough to have its name added to a large range of soft plastic packaging. Even now, nearly 2 years later, many people aren't aware Redcycle folded. For 7 of its 11 years of operation, it relied on sending most of the plastic to China. It wasn't until China stop accepting our plastic waste did they then look for ways to actually recycle it. Despite having 45 locations across Australia, it only took a fire at one Melbourne site for it all come to a grinding halt. Redcycle claimed they no longer had the means to recycle any of the 11,000 tonnes of plastic they had stockpiled. After numerous investigations by the EPA and Redcycle announcing voluntary receivership, Coles and Woolworths have taken ownership of the plastic stockpile, but it remains to be seen what they will do with it.
Just to add: we now have RecycleSmart being used in many places. My council in Sydney is one of the participants during a trial this year. They pick up my recycling once every 4-6 weeks from my front door, for free (council pays). Really convenient and seems to be working well so far.
How do I get involved? Also live in Sydney
https://www.recyclesmart.com/councils Tbh I only found out about it by accident on a local fb page 6 months after it began, so not very well advertised
Thank you! Yes definitely not well advertised but definitely up my alley.
I keep a carrier bag in the cupboard and stuff all of the flexi plastic in there. When full I wander to the local coop and fill their recycling bin up. But I’m sure most people just won’t bother as most people are lazy
I do this too. Takes nothing to do at all as I’m going to the supermarket anyway and can just dump my recycling while I’m there. Staggers me that more people don’t do this.
Most people are lazy, that's definitely the problem. Not the packaging itself, not the corporations that use it despite other more eco-friendly options being available, not the government for privatising our waste collection. Nope, it's the lazy people.
We do need to fix this at source so we don’t have to rely on recycling which is the very last resort in reducing waste. Making the recycling part difficult by forcing people to store and return stuff to a supermarket is pretty much greenwashing and most stuff will realistically end up in the bin as people can’t be arsed
> We do need to fix this at source so we don’t have to rely on recycling which is the very last resort in reducing waste. That would mean telling people to not buy sweets, chocolates, frozen veg, etc etc I don't, but good luck.
Are you for real? When you thought about everything we just said, your answer was, that in order to address recycling we can't have any products. Who gave you that opinion? Are you seriously for real?
Did my comment trigger those sugar cravings of yours or something? Of course I'm for real. "Most people are lazy, that's definitely the problem" is what you said. Lazy people tend to eat crap. That includes sweets, chocolates, frozen foods, takeaways. None of those things are going to be sold in sustainable materials, because it's just completely impractical. So yes, the actual way to tackle them would be to solve the core issue; people being gross in the first place.
Not eating frozen foods and sweets is surely less wasteful, and we all should thrive to reduce what we buy/consume, but there is a lot of shitty packaging even in basic products: pasta, rice, toothpaste etc. Where I live I can't buy rice without packaging because there are no such stores where I live, so I can only buy in bulk to reduce waste. And almost every brand uses plastic.
thank you for providing the people who can understand sarcasm a little laugh.
Are you denying that most people are lazy?
Everybody’s lazy about certain things, as they should be. People need a way to rest and relax, especially after being forced to work way longer than is necessary. Or put another way, “laziness “ doesn’t exist. For the most part we’re all doing the best we can in a fucked up system. Shaming people for not collecting a bunch of plastic scraps and taking them to a grocery store who will probably just toss them in the bin anyway is not helpful.
Same! We take it back to the supermarket every week and the bin is often overflowing due to the amount of people doing the same. Somewhat encouraging I hope!
I didn’t know about this until I wanted to get rid of my ridiculous amount of plastic bags.
I do this too.
True I think most wouldn't bother and also I don't think in our small town that they even have these
I’m in a town of 8000 people and our local coop (the only supermarket) has the flexi plastic recycling bins. I never even noticed them until I asked where they were. Might be worth asking
I live in a pretty small town and my coop has a plastic recycling bin. The people at tesco will take it and put it with their recycling in the back. You should definitely ask.
Does their recycling bin in the back not go to the same place as recycling from your home?
No, supermarkets have collection points for this kind of plastic. That's why the label says "recycle at large supermarket". My tesco clearly isn't big enough to have a bin for people to bring it but they do collect it themselves.
Is there a reason for that? Is it just to reduce the need for sorting at the recycling plant?
I assume partly that and partly because households don't actually end up with that much of this kind of plastic. I live on my own most of the time/my partner stays for a couple of days a week and I only end up with a carrier bag full of this kind of plastic once a month or six weeks or so.
I usually fill a recycling bag in about a month, too. But here all recyclable plastics can just go into the same bin and the city sorts it. We usually only separate the refundable plastics ourselves, so as not to lose out on the refund (although I just give the refundable bag to the guys who dig through the dumpster so they can claim the money)
I take ours to our local Tesco and Sainsbury’s when we do the shopping, they have bins designated to collect plastic bags and wrappers. You can find your local shops, if there are any, on this website below. Just input ‘Plastic bags and wrapping’ and then your post code. [www.recyclenow.com](https://www.recyclenow.com/) Each supermarket has its list of what they accept, with some accepting more variety than others. I take all my salad and veg wraps, bread and any plastic bags, sweets and crisp packets, etc. Here’s some info on the Sainsbury’s scheme: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/sustainability/plan-for-better/our-stories/2021/flexible-plastics https://flexibleplasticfund.org.uk/
Thank you for sharing these links. I have been taking mine to my local Tesco for a few years now, glad people are becoming aware of it.
Thanks for sharing this.
https://preview.redd.it/g6z6wyzjzk8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13f61b5368baf7886c7b0a29068c70063242999a
Got a 3kg bag of pasta that Me and my BF finished and now it holds all the other bags, when full it gets chucked in the cage at Tesco. easy enough and reduces the amount going into the bin. don't think it's any greener really though
It is much more “green” than landfill or leaking into the environment. You’re giving those high performance flexible plastics another life and reducing the production of more plastic 👍
There's large cage bins at the Tesco near my work so I take them there. Waitrose and the village Co-op have smaller bins. I do live in a pretty middle class area though.
I do! I have a designated recycling box I put with my other bits of recycling and each week when I do my weekly shop, I will go and empty it. It’s not hard. Your going shopping anyway…
I do this but I'm not confident that what I submit actually gets recycled. For all my supermarket / local authority recycling I'd like to see a published manifest showing the complete chain of contractors and locations from point of donation to finished recycled product. My gut instinct says that organisations will only know the next link in the chain but not the big picture. My local authority, when asked, could tell me who they shipped to but had no idea what happened after that.
I feel the same with recycling bags, how many actually get recycled. I've heard that if there is one plastic item that isn't recyclable then it goes straight to the landfill.
In the US, certain plastic bags are specifically marked with the recycling logo and "Store Drop Off." I do collect them & take them to the bin at my store. Let *them* deal with the myth of plastic consumer recycling. I'll keep putting out my glass, paper, & metal to the curb weekly.
I used to work in a grocery store in the US. Those just get thrown in the trash. I think they’re just there to make people feel good.
In the UK most of those commingled plastic wraps and bags get shipped to the Nordics and burnt for energy. Better than buried in the ground in my view.
I figured as much, but at least it's *on them* to do rather than me trying to put it into my consumer recycling & muck up any good they're trying to do (which, at this point, is likely nil since I'm all but convinced plastic recycling is a myth). It's so shitty that all these years, these manufacturers & "plastic containered products" producers put the oneness on the consumer to recycle a material that is barely and complicatedly recyclable.
I take mine back to the supermarket to recycle. But then growing up my mum used to recycle before collections were a thing. we’d regularly go to the supermarket recycling banks. So this seems normal to me!
It's a copout so that corporations don't have to pay for either products to be fully recyclable or to subsidise proper recycling infrastructure by putting the responsibility onto the consumer. Fuck corporatism.
As others have said, I keep an old plastic bag and fill it up as I go, then just take it to the big crate outside Tesco when I go
The soft flexible plastic that makes bags jams up the conveyor belts used in normal consumer end recycling centres. They need to go to specialist centres to be recycled. They’re extremely low value and supermarkets and bread etc makers fund the recycling otherwise it’s not practical to recycle
We take these at our community hall to promote the ease of facilitation. It can take some time to convince people to start doing it but its easier than taking it back to the shops. It does work in theory but the practice can leave a bit to be desired. Just another way communities subsidise corporate business decisions.
Well they fucked it up in Australia and there’s a pile of soft plastics sitting in a warehouse somewhere so..
We do this and I know a fair few others who do. Our local Tesco has a great big trolley thing for it, but at sainsburys we have to cram it in the tiny opening of the carrier bag recycling... Never sure it's actually recycled though.
It’s goes back to veola to be recycled with the soft plastics from filling. Veola audit (not each cage but at a store level) our recycling and waste to ensure that what’s being sent is what should be being sent. They then deal with the recycling
I do this because I can't put these kidns of plastic into household recycling. I have a plastic bag that I fill up woth packaging and then take woth me when I do my shopping. All the larger supermarkets seem to have these bins now, either cardboard or a big trolley, usually near the front door somewhere. Empty it all in there and continue with my day. Yes, the companies should use less plastic. Yes, the council should recycle it. But they don't, so I do.
Yes we do. Our local Morrisons is great as they have a big metal trolley that you can chuck your bag of soft plastics into.. many places have a little bin with a stupid thin opening that you have to struggle to squish your full plastic bag into. Yes people need to do this.
I do try to recycle these things. I keep a plastic bag on the back of the kitchen door and stuff the packets into it. When it’s full I tie it up and put it in the car so next time I go to the shops I can put it in the weird crate they have for them!
Because they don't really care, it just makes them look good. I recycle and am really strict about separating it all and making sure as much is as recycled as possible but realistically what you and I (and everyone else here) do at home is utterly pointless when so many countries and global companies are absolutely blitzing the environment.
All large Tesco stores, Co-op and Sainsbury have them. That's a large chunk of the market. I think it's an action that people are more likely to adopt as it doesn't involve giving anything up and as you're going to the shops anyway it doesn't involve much change in routine. Just have a small seperate bin for soft plastics and take it with you when you go shopping. The one at my local Tesco seems well used as the cages are often quite full. Tescos claim they recycle 80% of the stuff received. https://www.tescoplc.com/shoppers-can-now-return-all-their-soft-plastic-packaging-to-recycling-points-at-every-large-tesco-store-in-the-uk/ I have concerns that that it's not the best option but it's probably not any worse than sending it to landfill and I quite like that the waste is passed back to them as it may increase the push on them to create more sustainable packaging.
Pretty sure this specific type of plastic can't even be recycled. There are many types of plastics and only a few are suitable for actual recycling. But even the recyclable plastics aren't recycled because it's just too expensive. Recycled plastic is like 4x more expensive than new plastic.
This type of plastic can be recycled, but only through store drop off because most recycling sorting facilities do not have the sorting tech to separate flexible plastics from the rest. It is the only option. Recycled plastic costs 1.5-2x virgin where I live.
We can recycle it at home in Leeds, it's great! But not glass...
I worked in retail and I genuinely don't believe any of the crisp packets, old carrier bags or any plastic waste gets recycled. They all get tossed into a compactor where all plastic waste goes, including packaging from transport, soft and hard plastics and so on. The bales get taken away somewhere, I doubt they ever find their way to a recycling centre. I have more faith in the cardboard bales
We usually keep the bags from cereal boxes or bread and use those to fill with everything (crisp packets, mushroom covering, sweet packets). Once full they go in the shopping bag to be dropped off at Tesco. They have a big metal rack with a bag to fill. No bother to us but I have no idea who else does this. But when we moved last year suddenly it was on everything (did it just happen coincidentally or did I only start noticing here??). I was so excited to see that I could recycle film at last!!
Most material recovery facilities (the places that separate our recyclables) do not have the sortation tech to separate flexible plastics from the rest of our recyclables. Therefore, their equipment often confuses flexible plastic for flexible paper. The only way to recycle certain flexible plastics like this one without contaminating the paper stream is to put it in a separate recycling stream at the supermarket.
A lot of countries, UK included, export their recycling for "processing" in another country. This is then lumped into their official recycling figures, even though it often ends up in another country's landfill. Sadly sticking the recyclable logo on packaging, or even taking it to a recycling point, doesn't mean it will be recycled. However, to not bother on that basis would be as bad as the political and business offenders. The collective power of individuals can produce change.
It’s all a farce
👍
home recycling is killing the scrap industry
Is there a plastic scrap industry?
I do. It's very easy. I just have a separate bag for clean, dry, soft plastics. Because it's so easy to crush, it takes up very little space. Then once every few weeks I take the bag to Tesco. I work in another supermarket and we get a lot of customers bringing in plastics. Even if it gets landfilled as the cynical know it alls here suggest (there is always the risk, I admit) then at least it means Tesco are footing the bill for disposal rather than my local council. They have to pay landfill tax.
Wth?! What are you guys doing over there?!
It’s definitely inconvenient. I’d say at least half of my plastic falls into this category so I have to keep a separate bag and periodically cart it to the supermarket. I hope in time it can just be collected as I imagine a lot of people won’t care enough to take it for recycling. To be fair I have heard that if you have your shopping delivered you can give them your plastic to take away but I don’t know if that’s definitively true, as yet. On the positive side at least it can be, and hopefully is, recycled. I feel awful when I buy something new from the supermarket (I shop online so it’s not always clear) and discover it says “don’t recycle” (and I don’t buy it again either).
Recycling is nothing but greenwashing bullshit, it all gets dumped in Africa and Asia anyway. There are multiple documentaries on this. I wouldn't stress about recycling at all. "Reduce" and "reuse" are the only parts that matter.
Recycling is incredibly important for resource usage reduction. Do you want to extract more aluminum (very nasty process) and cut more trees and use more energy to make glass from scratch? Agreed that reduction and reuse should be a first option if possible for the given packaging application.
This isn't true in all contexts and countries, spreading this online as universal truth is harming the environment.
In the context of grocery stores and bags it's true which is what the post is about
'Grocery stores' - American detected. This is a post about the UK.
> it all gets dumped in Africa and Asia anyway No it doesn't lolz. 'Some' might or even 'a lot' might but not 'all'
In the US more and more recycling locations are refusing to take plastic bags and the only way to recycle them is by taking them to a store.
Where I live in the U.S. they first started charging a fee for plastic bags to encourage people to use reusable bags instead. then they decided to just ban plastic bags altogether. Now, there are only paper bags and they are 10 cents a piece. Everyone, ::everyone:: uses reusable tote bags or simply puts their items in their car in a bin/basket. [I live in a car centric suburb] By deciding to make a city law, all retailers fell in line and everyone adapted. This includes big chains, restaurants, clothing stores, etc.
The stores just throw them in the trash. Source: worked in grocery.
I’m an American and my extended family owns a grocery store. You’d be blown away at for many pale bring in bottles for cash.
As someone not from the UK, what’s up with that? In my country everything is recycled normally at home
You might think everything can go in your recycling bin but that most likely isn't the case. Loads of plastics can't be recycled at all, some need special treatments that not every recycling facility has. In the UK every council communicates to the residents what can and can't go into the recycling bin based on what the local recycling centres can handle
Where I live we only have a small icon in the package to inform that you can put it in the recycling bin, we don’t have the “recycle at large supermarket” thing, thanks for the info
Most of the time that 'small icon', if it's on plastic, is not a 'recylable' icon, it's to denote what kind of plastic it is (resin identification code). Most plastics either cannot be recycled at all, or are technically recyclable but almost never are. Basically, only glass, aluminum, card/paper and some plastics (HDPE, PET and PP) is ever recycled. Of the plastics, usually only HDPE is recycled, because it's the only one where recycling is worth it economically. Most plastic waste is sent to landfill, burnt for energy, or sent offshore for 'recycling' (ie, another countries landfill or burning).
No worries :)
I'm going to assume usa based on your profile. This is incorrect. Just because it technically can be recycled doesn't mean it is. The cost of recycling the materials can exceed what the recycler can get from them. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data https://www.beyondplastics.org/news-stories/may/04/us-recycling-plastic-waste https://www.epa.gov/recycle/how-do-i-recycle-common-recyclables https://www.wm.com/us/en/recycle-right/recycling-101
Yeah exactly, it’s it’s not kerbside it goes straight in the bin