Study Finds Councils in England Are Not Doing Enough to Combat Plastic Pollution

GMT / AGILITYPR.NEWS / September 24, 2020 / Hi there, 

I wondered if Bahari’s recent findings on the topic of plastic recycling in England would be of interest to you? 

Plastic recycling: ‘If local authorities were all doing the same thing, it would help people to do the right thing’

Research carried out by the eco-friendly homeware company Bahari found that 50% of the country’s worst councils for plastic recycling are in Greater Manchester, with other councils such as Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Southampton, West Berkshire and Winchester also falling below the mark. 

As you can see from the table below, Bury, Oldham, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford councils only allow you to recycle three types of plastic waste: drinks bottles, cleaning bottles and plastic milk bottles. However, many other councils across the country allow you to recycle up to 8 different types of plastic. These include yoghurt pots, punnets (e.g. fruit punnets), drinks bottle tops and even plastic carrier bags! 

The study found that the average number of plastic items councils in England allow you to recycle is 6. Whereas amongst councils in Greater Manchester, the average is just 4, with many councils only allowing you to recycle 3 types of plastic items. 

Bahari’s founder Jane Walkinshaw says; “This data really covers the provisions that councils have made for people to recycle at home. We know that not all plastic waste ends up in landfills, but we’ll love to see more provision for recycling in the home both in Greater Manchester and across the country. 

In particular, this is a call for more visibility and transparency into what happens to our household waste after it leaves our homes. In turn, we’d hope that increased transparency would help encourage more people to recycle their single use plastics - or even better - replace them with eco-friendly alternatives”. 

Bahari also contacted Dr. Rachael Rothman, the Academic Lead for Sustainability at Sheffield University, who commented “If local authorities were all doing the same thing, it would help people to do the right thing”.  

Methodology: We compiled recycling information available on 342 different councils’ websites across England. This allowed us to discover which councils allow you to recycle different types of plastic items in household recycling bins across the country. 

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If you’d like any more information or comment on this, please let me know and I’ll get straight back to you. 

Kind regards, 

Elizabeth