Appeal: Help us ban UK plastic waste exports

The UK has a plastic packaging problem

Although many people in the UK are concerned about plastic pollution and want to reduce plastic consumption, we still use and discard an astonishing amount of plastic packaging.

• The UK produces more plastic waste per person than any other country in the world, apart from the US. A lot of this is plastic packaging.
• Every week, UK households throw away 1.7 billion pieces of plastic packaging - that’s 60 pieces of plastic per household.
• The most common items are plastic packaging for snacks, fruit and vegetables.

Source: The Big Plastic Count and Law et al (2020)

Recycling’s dirty secret

What’s even more shocking is what happens to our plastic waste once we set it aside for recycling. Many of us assume it is safely recycled in the UK. Sadly, that’s not the case.

Every year we dump hundreds of millions of kilograms of plastic waste in places such as Türkiye, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In 2024, the UK exported 598 million kg of plastic waste for recycling, a rise of 6% compared with the year before and the highest figure since 2018.

What’s worse, a significant amount of the plastic waste we send overseas for recycling is mismanaged, dumped, put into landfill or burned, causing problems for the environment and human health.

The UK Government may think that our exported plastic waste is out of sight and out of mind. But it’s not. All global ecosystems are connected and, ultimately, we will all suffer from the toxic effects of plastic pollution.

Should you stop recycling plastic?

No! Please don’t stop recycling your plastic waste. If you stop recycling, more will just go to landfill, where it will degrade and release harmful microplastics into soil and water sources.

You’re not responsible for plastic waste exports. It’s down to governments and decision makers to do the right thing.

We need your help to change a broken recycling system. Please support EIA so we can keep up our campaign to end polluting exports of plastic waste.

The high cost of offshoring our plastic waste

When wealthy countries offload their plastic waste onto communities that struggle to cope with their own waste, it’s not recycling. It’s exploitation. The plastic waste trade causes significant environmental and human health harm, fuels a thriving illegal plastic waste market, and monopolises the limited recycling facilities of the country overseas.

 

Why we need your support

 We’ve made progress on halting harmful plastic waste exports elsewhere in Europe and in raising political and industry support for a ban in the UK. Now we need your help to ban plastic waste exports here. With your support, we can continue to collate evidence, raise the alarm and ensure policymakers take responsibility for this serious environmental issue.

How we’re fighting plastic waste exports

For over a decade, we’ve worked to combat the rise of plastic pollution and to keep the issue firmly before the eyes of governments and decision makers around the world.

We’ve outlined the scale of the problem in a series of deep-dive reports, engaged with Government and industry stakeholders and built vital partnerships with other NGOs and communities in global movements, including Break Free from Plastic.

As campaigners, experts and advisors to governments around the world, we make sure we’re in the room at international meetings such as plastics treaty negotiations, at the European Union and Basel Convention. We work constantly to tackle the world’s global plastics plague and uplift the demands of our partners, supporters and the UK public.

 

Our plastic, our problem

 It’s horrific that the UK exports so much of its plastic waste. Essentially, we’re burying our problems in someone else’s back garden. By supporting EIA, you can help us hold our Government to account and campaign to ban unfair, unethical plastic waste exports.

How you can help bring about change

By donating to EIA today, you could help us:

• Keep up the pressure on the UK Government to ban plastic waste exports.
• Campaign to reduce the production of plastic and consumption of single-use and non-essential plastics.
• Call for more investigations into the UK’s illicit waste market and gain a commitment from our Government to tackle plastic waste

 

Help us end this unethical trade.

One-off Donation

Direct Debit Donation

 Your support helps fund change. Any gift that you’re able to give us today will help us fight plastic pollution, hold governments to account and campaign to protect the environment and wildlife. Thank you for your generous support and for investing in the kind of world we all want to see.