The Results of the UK’s Big Plastic Count 2022

We know that modern society creates an enormous mass of plastic waste but have we fully grasped the extent of our unsustainable obsession? The results of the UK’s Big Plastic Count are in, revealing how much plastic packaging typical households throw away each year. Let’s dive straight into the results of this eye-opening survey and look at what they mean for the future of waste management.

The Big Plastic Count 2022 was the largest plastic survey ever carried out and that’s all thanks to the Great British public. The survey takes place during one week in May each year and sees families and households sort their plastic packaging waste into 19 categories over the course of the specified seven days. This information is submitted online to the organisers of the scheme, Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic. In return, households receive their plastic footprint which shows how much of their waste is likely to be recycled, exported, sent to landfill or burnt in an incinerator. Once all the data is in, the information is analysed and turned into a report which is now available to read online. If you just want to know the highlights of the survey, brace yourself for these thick and fast facts which represent the key findings and the state of the plastic waste situation in the UK.

This year saw a fantastic participation rate in the Big Plastic Count with 98,000 households joining in, almost 249,000 individuals! In just seven days, these voluntary participants counted 6.43 million pieces of plastic packaging, which averages at 66 pieces of packaging per household per week, or a surprising 3,432 pieces of plastic each year. If this number is assumed to be typical, then all UK households contribute 96.57 billion pieces of plastic to the ever-growing mound of global waste each year. Amongst this often single-use waste, the most common items were fruit and vegetable packaging, snack bags and wrappers, pots and trays. 83% of the waste was related to food and drink whilst only 7% came from cleaning supplies and toiletries. These results show that it is fairly difficult for UK consumers to avoid buying food items wrapped in plastic when they shop which was supported by some of the follow up comments made by participants. Common remarks suggested that greener more sustainable products were too expensive for them to buy and many were frustrated that supermarkets priced individual loose items of fruit as more expensive than those wrapped in single-use plastic. Some even argued that if we used local suppliers for fruit and vegetables then we wouldn’t need plastic wrapping to keep produce fresh during long transportation journeys. It appears that many British families would like to cut back on plastic but struggle to do so based on price and what is readily available in shops.

However, the report goes even deeper than these findings and suggests what percentage of this waste is likely to be recycled. Their report states that a measly 12% of the rubbish collected during the week is likely to be recycled in the UK, whilst 17% is shipped overseas, 25% is dumped in landfill sites and 46% heads to the incinerator. Let’s take a closer look at each of these routes our unwanted crisp bags, shampoo bottles or pieces of clingfilm could take.

First off is recycling and of all the plastic counted in the Big Plastic Count, 62% is either not collected or poorly collected by local authorities for recycling, meaning many of our waste plastic items cannot be left easily on the kerbside for collection. This makes it even harder for us at home to play our part. Even so, many argue that recycling is simply not a sustainable answer to the plastic waste problem. So many different types of plastic are unable to be recycled at all whilst the process of sorting all the various forms and colours of plastic make it a largely cost-inefficient practice in the UK. For example, whilst takeaway coffee cups are technically recyclable, the cost of extracting the paper exterior from the plastic interior means that very few companies will recycle them as they struggle to turn a profit. Even those plastic items which do get successfully recycled are often downgraded into lower grade materials and transformed into products such as traffic cones, carpets and fence posts and even then, virgin plastic is often added into the mix to help boost quality. After only two or three trips round the recycling plant, plastic items have simply lost too much of their quality to be used again and are dumped or burned.

Whilst recycling isn’t the winning solution we want it to be, it is certainly a better option than dumping single-use plastics. Unfortunately, it seems that this is what is happening far too often in the UK. In 2020, the British government said that 46% of the country’s waste was recycled, however an investigation by Greenpeace has found that over half this amount is actually sent overseas to countries such as Turkey. It is claimed that our waste will be recycled in these foreign countries but the truth is, we often don’t know exactly what happens. Many of these countries are still developing and lack proper waste infrastructure to deal with all their own waste, let alone ours too and so illegal dumps and waste burning sites crop up on the edges of towns or in the countryside. This leads to numerous environmental and human health issues but it seems we are happy to export these problems alongside our rubbish to somewhere else where it is out of sight and out of mind.

Obviously, landfill sites and incinerators are not sustainable options for our waste either, despite most of our plastic packaging ending its life here. Whilst incinerators promise to turn rubbish into energy, plastic is essentially made from oil and so contributes carbon dioxide to our atmosphere just the same as using traditional fossil fuels for energy does. Technology is in place to capture the harmful gases which are released from the burning of our waste which is often coated in chemicals, yet our technology is not as advanced as we’d like it to be, meaning toxic gases still leak from incinerator plants, causing respiratory problems for those living nearby. At landfill sites, wind and rain can sweep waste away into natural environments and waterways where it will eventually end up in the ocean, whilst the sun causes plastics to release methane and ethylene, yet more gases which don’t belong in high quantities in our atmosphere. So as you can see, the problem is not just the sheer amount of waste we create but the fact that we can’t sustainably get rid of the items we do throw away.

Every year the world creates 350 million tonnes of plastic, a weight which exceeds the total mass of all living mammals on our planet. Almost 13 million tonnes of this enters our oceans where it wreaks havoc on some of our most beautiful ecosystems and mysterious creatures. So what can the UK do to start making amends? We all know that plastic is destroying the natural world around us but the Big Plastic Count has really given us the evidence to help go some way to proving this. This project highlights just how successful citizen science projects can be, allowing us to collect gigantic sets of data that would simply be impossible for researchers and scientists to achieve alone. As the report states, this data collected by everyday individuals has helped ‘expose a system incapable of tackling the plastic crisis’. If landfills and incinerators are also damaging our planet and if recycling just isn’t working, then we need to turn off the plastic tap.

There are several initiatives the UK can implement to help stop the flow of plastic waste and it seems it will be up to the government to push these through as our current tactic of relying on businesses to voluntarily change their practices is just too slow compared to the rate of growth in our waste. A greater number of bans on common single-use plastics would force all businesses to adapt their product ranges, meaning no one business will lose out because they decide to innovate and use greener alternatives, helping a level playing field to be created. Whilst plastic cotton buds and straws have been banned, UK legislation currently only targets four of the top ten items of plastic pollution. Other countries are already taking a stance on this, such as France which have recently eliminated large amounts of plastic packaging from fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets. Following their lead will also enable UK consumers to buy products which are free from excess packaging, a step forward that a large chunk of the population seem to want. We should see these laws as encouragement to start a new phase of exciting innovation as we look to alternate materials, materials which are actually reusable and recyclable to help us build a truly sustainable circular economy. It seems the people of Britain want positive change, we just need those who control the start of the plastic life cycle to sit up and listen. If you want to get involved, don’t forget to show your support for compostable or reusable packaging, bans on single-use plastic and of course take part in the Big Plastic Count next year!

By Neve McCracken-Heywood