Recycling in the UK
20 years ago, Canada embarked on a program to cut waste by 50% by the year 2000 using the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. As a young school child at the time, I was encouraged forced to recycle. We had intense recycling within the school, with prizes for classes with the least amount of waste. Each classroom had its own bins for aluminum, glass, plastic and paper/cardboard and realizing what could be recycled was ingrained from an early age.
Though gaining more and more importance in today’s world, day-to-day recycling still seems to be a low priority for most British people. I suppose this is because it is still seen as voluntary rather than compulsory and heck, 20 years ago Britain wasn’t as concerned – they just chucked everything in a landfill in China rather than educating the younger generation (maybe that explains the apathy here?).
"Warm up to recycling" by Toban Black
In Canada it’s not uncommon to see public recycling bins accompanying regular garbage ones along the streets and in parks. From what I’ve gathered in the UK (in my area, anyways), there are no public recycling bins except in privately run parks. This is something that is being introduced in London at the moment, but how long before it catches on nationally?
Fig. 1
As well, many supermarket items in Canada are sold in larger, plastic containers as opposed to smaller, glass ones. Take, for example, peanut butter (Fig. 1). Here we have the most delicious peanut butter in the world, Jif (510g in a plastic container) vs. Sun-Pat (sold most commonly in 227g but in this diagram, 350g in a glass container). Manufacturers in the UK must spend a fortune and produce a heck of a lot of waste… Shouldn’t there be some laws governing that?
And, even though 9/10 households in the UK have kerbside recycling, most if not all of the Britons I know don’t actively recycle. Perhaps they’re lacking incentive to do so. Perhaps they were never taught how?
Canadians seem to, especially in places where garbage bags have to be marked with a pricey sticker in order to be picked up on the curb. When you buy beer / liquor bottles in Canada, they tack on a “bottle deposit” fee, which you get back if you bring your bottles back to the store. Incentive…
Fig. 2
Despite recent efforts, there’s no doubt that the UK is significantly behind in the green movement (Fig. 2). I’ll do my part, but I sincerely hope things change drastically over the next few years. If not, I’m moving to Austria! 
Further Reading
- Where Does Your Recycling Go? BBC News
- Recycling Symbols Quiz BBC News
- Environment and Greener Living direct.gov.uk
- Recycling and Waste Defra
Hi Amy, we met at the FOWD Bristol speed networking thing, I’m eventually getting round to going through all the business cards I got
Just had a look at your site and read this. I couldn’t agree more about how rubbish (ha!) we are at recycling. It’s starting to improve mainly because local councils have run out of landfill space, so it has finally become economically viable to recycle, which is sadly pretty much the only reason anything gets done by government.
More generally among the population though, recycling seems to be seen as something that’s imposed on them by the state, and therefore something to rebel against, rather than something that’s just part of being a good citizen. The same is true of other environmental obligations. People don’t see waste as something that harms other people in any way, and there’s a real lack of appreciation that taking more than your fair slice of the world’s resources is a bad thing to do.
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to rant too
I agree that in the UK recycling is not as much on the agenda as it should be but it is getting better there are also a few points that I take issue with.
I am from Northern Ireland and now currently reside in Australia but there has always been a bottle buy back in the UK but over the years it has become less and less and is nearly non existent. The same is true here in Australia, only one state, SA, has a bottle buy back scheme and I don’t really think it is effective as its only kids who do it to get some pocket money.
I also don’t like products getting larger and larger, sure it cuts down on packaging waste but it leads to food wastage and the follow on effect of obesity. That is obviously an extreme effect but portion sizes do make a difference. larger is not always better.
There does need to be more emphasis on getting people to separate waste as I think that is a major part of the battle, once that becomes second nature its a winner. As with web design, ease of use is a major part of getting people to do what they need to.
Mark and Aaron, good points… I agree with the rebellion thing – some don’t recycle because “it all ends up in a landfill anyways” which certainly might be the case according to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6238105.stm
Tiny glass peanut butter or sauce jars do piss me off though. They would last one day in the family of 5 I grew up in… at least make them plastic!
And for whatever reason, the buy-back scheme works well in Ontario but that’s not necessarily the answer for the UK. The government does need to get people motivated to recycle, though – maybe through providing public recycling bins and some sort of education campaign…
Definitely agree about this, I’m an active-recycling brit and really think there needs to be more incentives for people to recycle. Curb side recycling it atrocious in this country, every other country I’ve visited lately seems to have some scheme to allow this – just not us!
also, you have a new site design! It’s lovely
I try and recycle as much as possible, but the recycling men end up leaving most of it behind because it’s the ‘wrong type of plastic’, etc, etc. The door to door service is getting better, but still needs to be improved a lot. I think people that I know would be more than happy to recycle more if the council made it easier to do. For example getting public bins on the streets as the picture above.
Yup, exactly – the services provided by the government need to be dramatically improved (street bins a prime example!) and until that happens there will be a lack of enthusiasm for it. They don’t pick up green glass, for example?! What’s up with that… And despite sorting it all out some of it still ends up in a landfill… sad!
Hey Amy.
Perhaps there’s more support for recycling here in Canada. I don’t know the UK well enough to say.
In any case, the “warm up to recycling” message (from an Ontario city that happens to be called London)
is one that I posted because I basically found it to be lame. As a pro-recycling message, it’s weak; and as a form of environmentalism, it’s even weaker, since there’s a lot more to environmentalism (e.g. composting, e.g. local food).
Recycling also is overrated. People usually seem to think that no resources are expended when we recycle — despite all the transport and processing of materials. And I could go on (about ‘recycling’ that ends up in landfills…… etc).
Anyway, given how recycling has been promoted in Canada for decades, a “warm up to recycling” message seems silly here; or, rather, it should seem silly.
Great article, Amy.
I’ve been saying this for years. When I came over to the UK in 1992 I didn’t give it much thought. I was 9. But as I grew up and especially since living on my own I’ve seen how monumnetally behind the UK is when it comes to recycling. I remember the three Rs, I remeber getting our birst blue box to be collected at the end of our driveway. Now, 20 years on the UK hasn’t nearly caught up. It’s shamefull really.