Recycling in the United Kingdom
In 2022, the recycling rate from UK households was 44%. The majority of recycling undertaken in the UK is done by statutory authorities, although commercial and industrial waste is chiefly processed by private companies. Local authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010. Recycling policy is devolved to the administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who set their own targets, but all statistics are reported to Eurostat.
Incentives
Local authorities are given incentives towards meeting recycling targets set by European, national and regional Government by the imposition of financial penalties for failing to recycle. For example, levies are imposed on the proportion of waste material going to landfill under a landfill tax, which currently stands at £94.15 per tonne.Unlike other European countries, there are very few deposit-refund schemes in operation. The Defra Packaging Strategy of 2009 supported reward-based programmes, but other than some trials in Scotland, they have received almost no public or political attention. This may be due to the lack of evidence that they improve the recycling rate in a UK context. In December 2018, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has announced plans for a pledge of up to £60m towards innovative new packaging. One initiative in this is to assess the viability of household food waste being "transformed into environmentally-friendly plastic bags and cups." Scottish Parliament passed legislation to create a deposit return scheme including glass in May 2020 and later that year the UK Parliament passed the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. The UK Government refused to grant an exemption to the Act, forcing the Scottish Government to announce in 2023 that it would delay the scheme until October 2025 earliest, when a UK-wide deposit scheme is hoped to be implemented: Circular Economy Minister at the time, Lorna Slater, claimed the "UK Government... has sadly seemed so far more intent on sabotaging this parliament than protecting our environment".
The establishment of the government body Waste & Resources Action Programme has increased the country's recycling capacity. It is a registered charity. It works with businesses, individuals and communities to achieve a circular economy through helping them reduce waste, develop sustainable products and use resources in an efficient way. WRAP was established in 2000 as a company limited by guarantee. and receives funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Northern Ireland Executive, Zero Waste Scotland, the Welsh Government and the European Union.
From 31 March 2025, most workplaces in England have mandated separating out dry recycling, food waste and non-recyclables before collection. Micro-firms, defined as having fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees, are exempt until 31 March 2027. This requirement also applies to workplaces that provide bins to customers. All premises must collect and separate food waste even if they do not serve food or contain a kitchen.
Household recycling
UK domestic recycling policy is geared towards encouraging individuals to recycle in their own homes, through regulation and public awareness campaigns. These include fines for people who don't cut their household waste and a greater emphasis on separating waste into different recyclable materials, with each council applying different rules. Their focus is shifting toward encouraging recycling, rather than punishing households for non-recycled waste.Recycling is most efficient when items are reused around the home rather than discarded. Other approaches include taking glass items to bottle banks at supermarkets and composting biodegradable waste, making landfill unnecessary.
According to the latest figures from Defra:
- 44.3% of household waste was recycled in 2015
- There was a 235% increase in household recycling in England between 2000/01 and 2009/10.
- 26.7 million tonnes of household waste was generated in 2015, of which ~11.6 million tonnes was recycled, reused or composted.
- In 2015, dry recycling was the largest component of recycled waste, comprising 59% of the total.
- 86% of all British adults claim to be worried about the matter, and 90% of the people aged 55 and above show the most concern.
- Despite this, only 67% claim to 'often' take action to reduce plastic pollution, for example by recycling and changing shopping habits to buy alternatives to disposable plastic.
Industrial recycling
The European Union
The EU has introduced a number of directives which determine the targets of UK domestic recycling policy:The 1999 Landfill Directive is one of the most important of these, which demands a reduction in the amount of waste being sent to landfill from 11.2 million tonnes in 2010 to 7.46 million tonnes in 2013
In 2010, Defra claimed that the UK would meet its first landfill diversion target, which was 75% on 1995 levels, and that it is ‘on track’ to meet the next targets in 2013 and 2020.
The EU Waste Framework Directive states that the UK must recycle 50% of household waste by 2020, which includes composting and reusing waste. It also stipulates a 70% minimum recycling target for construction and demolition waste by 2020. The British government is highly confident in meeting the 2020 recycling target, but there is a lower level of certainty with the 2020 Landfill Directive target. There may not be enough time to construct the necessary facilities for organic waste.
Main aspects of UK recycling policy
UK recycling policy aims to improve recycling methods and levels across the UK, focusing on glass, paper, plastic and metal cans.Glass
Glass can be recycled in the form of bottles and jars which are crushed down and then melted. Glass can be recycled infinitely because it does not lose any of its quality. It uses a lot less energy, fewer raw materials and produces less than manufacturing glass from scratch. The main difficulty with recycling glass is the need to remove the unwanted materials that contaminate it and avoiding the mixing of different colours.Glass collection points, known as Bottle Banks are very common near shopping centres, at civic amenity sites and in local neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom. Bottle Banks commonly stand beside collection points for other recyclable waste like paper, metals and plastics. Local, municipal waste collectors usually have one central point for all types of waste in which large glass containers are located. There are now over 50,000 bottle banks in the United Kingdom, and 752,000 tons of glass are now recycled annually.
The waste recycling industry in the UK cannot consume all of the recycled container glass that will become available over the coming years, mainly due to the colour imbalance between that which is manufactured and that which is consumed. The UK imports much more green glass in the form of Wine bottles than it uses, leading to a surplus amount for recycling. The resulting surplus of green glass from imported bottles may be exported to producing countries, or used locally in the growing diversity of secondary end uses for recycled glass.
Paper
All types of waste paper are recyclable, and recycled paper requires a lot less energy and fewer raw materials to produce than manufacturing it from scratch. However, paper cannot be recycled indefinitely, and the normal number of times it can be recycled is about six. 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in England.Plastic
In the UK, the amount of post-consumer plastic being recycled is relatively low, due in part to a lack of recycling facilities. The challenge with recycling plastic lies in sorting differing types of plastic, often by hand, which slows the process. The Plastics 2020 Challenge was founded in 2009 by the plastics industry with the aim of engaging the British public in a nationwide debate about the use, reuse and disposal of plastics, and hosts a series of debates on its website framed around the waste hierarchy.Since 2024, caps have been tethered to plastic bottles due to a change with EU law and to reduce plastic waste. Although the UK was already a non-EU member at the time, many manufactures have nevertheless shipped goods to the UK with tethered caps for consistency.