26 Feb. 2025: A UK survey of 2,000 adults from Biffa has raised concerns about the current national levels of understanding about the recyclability of different household materials.
Some of the main conclusions of the study, commissioned by waste management group Biffa, including calling for revised approaches to inform consumers about how to dispose of household waste. These amendments would help better prepare he public for incoming ‘simpler recycling’ reforms, noted Biffa.
According to the survey, 47% of respondents said they struggled to fully understand what household materials were suitable for kerbside recycling. Biffa added that the research found some respondents were incorrectly disposing glass jars and tin cars in general waste bins.
The company’s research is intended to highlight current public perceptions about how best to dispose different materials in households to limit landfill.
Biffa added that 69% of respondents said they would welcome more information to help them determine how to ensure materials are being correctly recycled.
A large majority of the survey group – 75% – said that one welcome intervention would be offering clear details on packaging about whether time can be recycled. The company said it had been pushing multiple governments for rethinking how labelling can tackle public understanding and improve the quality of collected materials.
The research has been backed with an online quiz seeking to gauge public attitudes and explain how where certain materials can be recycled from households, while also looking at how to avoid disposing of contaminated materials that are unsuitable for processing.
It also noted that 44% of the survey group were found to believe they could recycle polystyrene, a material that is said must currently be disposed in general waste.
Biffa argued that this misunderstanding about what materials can be recycled showed that good intentions among households to recycle were being undermined by insufficient guidance to separate and clean different materials correctly.
It added: [This is] a common example of ‘wishcycling’, where whilst the intentions are often good as people want to recycle as much as possible, non-recyclable items are being put into a recycling bin leading to recyclable materials and resources being wasted due to contamination.
Other conclusions of the research were that 16% of people polled for the research believed that metal tops were recyclable, while 12% of the survey group said they were mistakenly consigning tins to general waste.
Biffa said the survey’s conclusions were timely as the UK prepares to implement its simpler recycling reforms. These changes will require that commercial organisations with a minimum of 10 full-time employees are separating plastic, paper, card, glass, metals and food materials from general waste of 31 March this year. Failure to comply with the requirements will lead to fines for organisations.
Roger Wright, waste strategy and packaging manager for Biffa, said the conclusions showed the importance of clear information to inform improved awareness of good recycling practice among the public.
“We can see from these findings that there are clearly good intentions when it comes to recycling.”
“People care about the environmental impact of their rubbish, however, there is still a lot of confusion as to what can and can’t be recycled and many people are still struggling to get it right. Recycling rates across the UK have broadly stagnated, even declining in some regions, so it’s crucial we all play our part in helping the public understand what can and can’t be recycled.”
By Neil Merretti https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/