Saturday 21 October will be remembered in the Vanston household for three things. First, England lost heavily to South Africa in the cricket. Second, England lost painfully to South Africa in the rugby. Third, England won – on balance – on the government’s announcements on ‘consistency of recycling’.
Most households may only have heard about the first two disappointing events. The potential joys of consistent recycling announcements may have eluded many. Let me explain.
‘Consistency of recycling collections for households and businesses’ – now badged as Simpler Recycling – is a UK government policy for England that aims to do two things. First, the policies aim to enable all households across the country to recycle the same broad range of packaging items. Second, the policies enable packaging to be labelled with unambiguous messages of ‘recycle’ or ‘do not recycle’.
Enabling unambiguous messages like these to reach citizens across the whole of the UK will require all four governments in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to work together. UK-wide interoperability for businesses is important. It needs the governments acting together on coherent labelling.
To be fair, Wales has made extensive efforts to implement its ‘Collections Blueprint’ across all Welsh councils for some years. But that’s Wales. England has 80%-plus of the UK population, and similarly for the tonnage of packaging placed on the market.
Thus England’s announcement to have common recycling labelling and collections has the potential to be a game-changer in advancing a UK-wide binary recycling labelling system.
This policy is well overdue. UK-wide common labelling and matching recycling collections is supported by a massive 82% of the public, as shown in INCPEN’s public polling reported in October 2023.
Nonetheless, there are some challenges. Here are the top three:
Timings: UK-wide, consistent recycling labelling on packaging will only happen with a common approach – and a common timescale of implementation – across all four nations. But that’s not currently the case. All businesses in England (apart from micro-businesses) need to implement recycling collections of all specified materials by March 2025. For all English households, the timescale is by March 2026. The exception is soft plastics recycling collections, which are due by March 2027. INCPEN is clear that, for the greater good of citizens wherever we reside in the UK, these actions should be UK-wide.
Quality: The government is acting on harmonising ‘what’ is collected for recycling. It has watered down proposals on ‘how’ recyclates are collected, favouring a ‘put it all in one bin’ approach. That might mean greater quantities are captured for recycling, but at what cost to the quality of the recyclate passed back to producers to use as recycled content? Some very big question marks – and costs – will remain embedded in the collections system that INCPEN and producers will need to challenge.
Ownership of recyclates: For all its faults on implementation, the central plank of a deposit return scheme of producers owning the collected materials is sound. This principle has not – yet – been carried over to the planned Simpler Recycling and extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems, though INCPEN has consistently called for ownership by producers.
The nirvana of UK-wide common recycling messages on packaging is closer in sight than it has ever been. But far-reaching questions remain on implementation coherence and timings across the UK, quality of recyclates, and materials ownership issues.
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