Ambiguous Packaging Materials for Recycling

What you need to bear in mind is that it's not the manufacturer nor the council which ultimately dictates what can/cannot be accepted for recycling, it's the recycling centre it winds up at.

I was 'green champion' for our office at work for while, helping implement a load of eco improvements including a recycling programme. Actually getting authoritative straight answers around this stuff was a bear of a job. I eventually found a company (which might have been Biffa, it's a good while ago and they were one of our customers so I may have made that up) which took "DMR" - dry mixed recycling - so glass, plastic, paper, plastic, metal etc all went into one bin and general waste such as food into another (which still proved too difficult for some people). My kerbside collection at home requires paper and card to be separated from everything else, and it's a different system again from the one at my previous house the next town over.

But that's by the by. Point is, it's not possible for food manufacturers to state anything beyond recyclable or not because it's impossible to know what the final destination will accept. We get a calendar from the council every year listing collection dates and explaining what goes in where, that's as close to canonical as I've found for domestic collection and if it's wrong then it's their fault. I haven't had cause to look in ages but last I checked the council website was next to useless.

As a rule of thumb for your chicken tits, the plastic container and card sleeve will be recyclable but the thin film plastic won't be. One thing to watch for, if you see a round green-and-white logo with two arrows that doesn't mean it's recyclable, it means it's made from recycled material.

And if it's any consolation, for all my channelling of Dave Angel I still have to look it up every time I toss out a Tetrapak.

Oh, and,

A percentage of contamination is usually acceptable. exactly how much may vary. But don't lose too much sleep over the notion that they've had to reject two tonnes of waste because you've left the paper label on a soup can.

Please refrain from posting if it’s just to say you think all recycling is a waste of time)

Recycling is the right thing to do, obviously. But, I'm in India at the moment and there's a billion people here who couldn't give a toss about it, and from what I've seen, getting through and discarding plastic (everywhere...) at a prodigious rate. The same goes for much of the world.

So, whilst you should recycle, and I recycle, I shouldn't get your knickers into too much if a twist about it, because when the world burns it ain't be because you put your pasty packet in the wrong bin.

A weird one I've seen quite a lot of recently in food packaging is the recyclable symbol then next to it a text box with 'not suitable for home recycling' written next to it.

I think some of the problem comes from not having a national recycling strategy too. We go all over the country with our caravan and it's amazing the difference in what can and can't be recycled and how it needs to be sorted by different authorities.

When I lived in Cirencester, we had

Green bin for garden waste

Green box for paper and glass

Blue bag for cardboard

White bag for plastic

Food waste caddy

Black bin for everything else.

Mental

It is entirely possible for the manufacturer to state the material used. It should be obligatory, and is in some markets (as is noticeable if you ever unpack a product from packaging meeting Japanese market standards). Local authorities could likewise state materials instead of ambiguous descriptions - what constitutes a plastic film or a plastic bag anyway?

To claim producers are doing their best because they don’t know what Rutland (or wherever) does or doesn’t recycle is pretty limp. We should do better.

It's interesting how there's no standard for council recycling around the country.

Here in Bradford we have up to 3 bins.
A green coloured wheelie bin for general waste, with fortnightly collections.
A grey coloured wheelie bin for recycling with fortnightly collections, into which can go:-

Catalogues
Junk mail
Cardboard
Newspapers
Magazines
Office paper
Envelopes
Shredded paper (to prevent spillage, please put in a small cereal or other cardboard box)
Aerosol cans
Aluminium foil
Drinks cans
Food cans
Glass bottles
Glass jars
Plastic bottles
Plastic food trays
Margarine/butter tubs
Yoghurt pots
Food and drinks cartons (for example, Tetrapak)

The following can't go in:-

Plastic plant pots or seed trays
Plastic bags, bin bags, crisp packets, cellophane, cling film or bubble wrap – these are a low grade plastic which also get tangled in the sorting machine
Foam/polystyrene take away cups, food trays or packaging
Waxed/coated cardboard take away drink cups - the card and plastic cannot be separated
Mirrors or sheets of glass - these can be taken to your local Household Waste Recycling Centre
Pyrex jugs or dishes - made from toughened/treated glass
Paint tins or oil cans - these can be taken to your local Household Waste Recycling Centre
Wallpaper - some have adhesive or coatings on them which can’t be separated
Plastic toys or kitchenware such as kettles and washing up bowls
Greetings cards with glitter, foil or beads
Black plastic food trays
Other items such as needles, colostomy bags, incontinence pads, nappies, dog poo, food waste, garden waste, car parts, car batteries, bricks, wood, carpets, textiles, electrical items including cookers, dryers, vacuum cleaners, gas bottles or hazardous waste should not be put in your recycling bin

So we do our best to make sure the only the correct stuff goes in, I'm sure we get it wrong sometimes but I don't stress about it, I guess it's all going to be sorted one way or another at the recycling centre.

And there's also an optional brown wheelie bin for garden waste. We have room for compost bins in the garden so use those.

A weird one I’ve seen quite a lot of recently in food packaging is the recyclable symbol then next to it a text box with ‘not suitable for home recycling’ written next to it.

Theres a difference between something being 'recycled' and something being 'recyclable'. So that symbol may well be telling you it's the former but not the latter.

I suspect with food packaging it'll be result of trying to minimise plastic and use card instead (which would of course be recycled card) but having to add something to it to or laminate it with another material make it waterproof / food safe which then creates a composite material that is itself unrecyclable even if all the component parts in making it are recycled.

Theres a plethora of symbols on packaging that all seem to mean 'recyclable' but don't really mean much at all

means: an object is capable of being recycled but not that it will necessarily be accepted in all recycling collection systems or that it has been recycled.

means: The Green Dot does not necessarily mean that the packaging is recyclable, will be recycled or has been recycled. It is a symbol used on packaging in some European countries and signifies that the producer has made a financial contribution towards the recovery and recycling of packaging in Europe.

This label is applied to packaging collected by 75% or more of UK local authorities and then sorted, processed and recycled into new packaging or products.

This label is applied to packaging collected by less than 50% of UK local authorities and/or is not able to be sorted, processed and recycled into new packaging or products.

So thats clear isn't - they all mean - 'maybe recyclable' - even the one that clearly  says 'don't recycle'

In many cases, I'm convinced "recyclable" is just BS greenwashing on the part of the manufacturer. Sure something may technically be recyclable, it may also not be financially viable and no one in the country actually does it. Makes the manufacturer look eco-freindly though, yay.

I try to recycle as much as practically possible, to the point that it annoys my wife somewhat 😉

Even so though: if in doubt leave it out. Sticking something wrong in the black bin will have much less of an impact than something wrong in the recycling bin (especially as the black bins round here go to incineration and energy recovery, not landfill).

means: an object is capable of being recycled but not that it will necessarily be accepted in all recycling collection systems or that it has been recycled.

Whilst technically you're correct and it's commonplace, that symbol is wrong. One arrow should wrap under, not over. It's a Mobius strip.

It’s generally on things like breaded chicken containers

If its the shiny cardboard type trays, I think you'll find the film will tear off the cardboard backing so the card can be recycled.

 it’s not the manufacturer nor the council which ultimately dictates what can/cannot be accepted for recycling, it’s the recycling centre it winds up at

Surely its the contract struck between the council and their chosen supplier that dictates this?  Unfortunately I think a fair proportion of my green bin ends up being incinerated due to a clause in the contract where the council needs to send xxxx tons of waste to the incinerator per annum,

A weird one I’ve seen quite a lot of recently in food packaging is the recyclable symbol then next to it a text box with ‘not suitable for home recycling’

Its where they base it on average kerbside collection rates.  So it may be recyclable at kerbside.  I've read all the guff for my local collections and still not 100% on some stuff...I think there are a couple of discrepancies between the website, annual leaflet drop and the sticker they put on the bin (we have a mixed wheelie bin for almost everything, thankfully) I know stretchy plastic (carrier bags are good, non-stretchy (film lids) not so sure.

It should be great when the standard 4 bin model comes in with the standard list of recyclables.

What really annoy me though...

Supermarkets making token gesture changes where it saves them money but they spin it as plastic reduction (see shrink wrapped beef - 55% less plastic) yet you backtrack to the produce section and find 15 types of apples in plastic and 2 options loose, 6 types of packaged carrots sorted by straightness and 1 loose option) and a whole section of chopped up fruit in pots.  And not even a token gesture towards bringing your own containers to refill for dry goods.  I'm looking at you, Sainsburys...

The stuff that can't be recycled at home goes in the shopping bag and I drop it in the supermarket recycling container on the way into the supermarket.
Not because I'm holier than thou and cleaner than clean - intentionally done as I need the space in the bag for shopping and so I need to clear the space. It just wouldn't get done otherwise as I'd forget.

In Edinburgh we have bins for landfill: compostable: glass and dry mixed recycling.   The dmr bin takes a lot of yhr guesswork out.

Aldi stores seem to be a pretty good centre for recycling, they'll let you have a coffee pod bag and they have bins for batteries and for "troublesome soft plastics", which is better than many local council services https://www.aldi.co.uk/corporate/corporate-responsibility/greener/recycle

The waste that ticks me off now is white polystyrene packaging which is often clearly marked as recyclable, but nobody seems to want recycle. Any ideas on local recycling for that?

Even when recycling it’s got to be done properly eg. Our  foil items have to be made into a tennis ball size, when scrunched together. Paper off cans.
I’m careful to buy things loose where possible, meaning little or no packaging.

If its the shiny cardboard type trays, I think you’ll find the film will tear off the cardboard backing so the card can be recycled.

I know that's how they are designed but the design is shit. They either don't tear at all or tear in such a way the cardboard is left in unusable tiny bits, covered in food waste or still with film attached. Back to the drawing board Grommit.

We have mixed dry recycling in Southampton though I think there is a backwards step in the pipeline to the million plastic box solution!

This feels like the sort of stuff AI should be doing, rather than giving us fly agaric risotto recipes and six-fingered lady porn. One bin, collected weekly, and the AI sorts it all out when it's dumped out of the lorry. We've got three bins but none of them allow cardboard, so I have to make a trip to the big cardboard bins in town once or twice a week. Often they're full, but I'm buggered if I'm bringing that cardboard home...

yet you backtrack to the produce section and find 15 types of apples in plastic and 2 options loose, 6 types of packaged carrots sorted by straightness and 1 loose option)

Ironically one thing driving the prevalence of plastic packaging for fruit and veg is organic produce. Because its charged at a premium it can't be sold loose as theres no way for it to be distinguished at the till so it has to be packaged

The waste that ticks me off now is white polystyrene packaging which is often clearly marked as recyclable, but nobody seems to want recycle. Any ideas on local recycling for that?

I once acquired a truck load of polystyrene packing shapes for a community art project (all the big sculptural shapes you get around TVs and computers etc) from a polystyrene recycling firm

The project happened then at the end all the polystyrene needed to be disposed of. It then occurred to me that there seemed to be no recycling facility locally either curbside or at the dump - and yet we'd been sent the stuff by a company that receives and recycles it.

So I called them up and asked then what I should do with it

"throw it in any bin or skip and it'll find its way to us" was the answer.

It's basically extremely easy to separated from waste streams so no need for there to be a specific bin / skip for it. Just put it in general waste and it'll get diverted to a recycler further down the route to landfill

“throw it in any bin or skip and it’ll find its way to us” was the answer

Perfect, thanks. Now why can't councils explain that to people!