The Hard Truth About Soft Plastic

How supermarket soft plastic take-back schemes are misleading customers

Together, Everyday Plastic and EIA undertook a year-long investigation into UK supermarket soft plastic take-back schemes – an industry initiative to increase the collection and recycling of hard-to-recycle soft plastic, the majority of which are not currently collected kerbside. Ahead of mandatory kerbside collection of this waste material in early 2027, supermarkets and others are seeking to create a recycling end-market. But what happens to this plastic waste?

Through the use of trackers placed in Sainsbury’s and Tesco takeback schemes, investigative research and more we found that 70% of tracked soft plastic bundles that reached a final treatment waste facility were burnt, not recycled. In addition, that tracked bundles show that collected soft plastic packaging waste continues to be exported abroad, both for recovery (incineration for energy recovery) and recycling and that the majority of tracked bundles sent to recycling facilities were exported to Türkiye.

Soft plastic packaging remains very hard-to-recycle but its use is increasing. Soft plastic recycling claims are misleading consumers and takeback schemes are likely obstructing genuine solutions. We go on to detail how a suite of corporate and government policy safeguards are necessary, including a plastic reduction target and ban on UK plastic waste exports.

Further information and petition are available on the Everyday Plastic website.