(GUF) WHY IS UK FRIDGE RECYCLING FAILING?

Image inspiration - Man Ray - link

Thousands of unwanted refrigerators and freezers are accumulating across the country because somewhat bizarrely, we've found ourselves running short of places capable of recycling them.

In Norfolk, approximately 3,000 discarded appliances have been stockpiled at a former recycling centre near Little Hautbois. At Newport Docks in South Wales, reports suggest that somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 fridges and freezers have been stranded following the collapse of a major recycling company. The Newport figure remains an estimate rather than a confirmed inventory, but even the lower number represents an extraordinary quantity of unwanted appliances.

Across Britain, local authorities have been restricting collections, recycling centres have been running out of storage space and residents have been asked to hang on to appliances they no longer want.

How has a country with a sophisticated recycling industry suddenly found itself unable to recycle something as commonplace as a refrigerator? Have we spent so long trying to make recycling cheaper that we've forgotten it actually needs to be financially sustainable?

When the recycling industry loses its cool

Unlike an old washing machine or a dishwasher, a refrigerator cannot simply be fed into a conventional metal shredder. Its refrigeration circuit may contain gases that damage the ozone layer or contribute significantly to global warming if released. Insulation foams can contain additional substances requiring controlled recovery or treatment, while newer appliances may use flammable refrigerants. Consequently, recycling a fridge properly requires specialist facilities capable of safely recovering these materials before separating the metals, plastics and other components.

These facilities are expensive to build, expensive to maintain and require specialist environmental controls and therein lies the problem. Britain has a relatively small number of specialist fridge treatment plants, so when one closes, the consequences can extend well beyond its immediate geographical area. Unfortunately, over the past twelve months, the industry has suffered a succession of significant setbacks.

In November 2025, Unimetals Recycling entered liquidation, bringing operations at its Newport facility to a halt. The site had reportedly been processing approximately 600,000 refrigerators annually. In February 2026 a fire disrupted operations at EMR's fridge-recycling facility in Darlaston, West Midlands. Two months later, another major fire severely damaged Wiser Recycling's treatment facility at Thetford in Norfolk. Within approximately six months, three significant parts of an already specialised recycling network had been disrupted.

The summer's exceptionally hot weather added further pressure with increased demand for appliance replacement coinciding with reduced processing efficiency at some treatment facilities. The result has been an accumulation of refrigerators for which there is insufficient readily available treatment capacity but these events alone don't explain why the industry was so vulnerable.

The warning nobody wanted to hear

In October 2020, written evidence submitted to Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee painted an uncomfortable picture of Britain's fridge-recycling industry. At that time, the submission identified 14 approved fridge-treatment plants operated by ten companies, with six businesses accounting for more than 96% of the appliances processed. The evidence estimated that Britain possessed approximately 30% surplus treatment capacity - on the face of it, reassuring, however, the same submission estimated that plants commissioned before 2008 accounted for 41.5% of national capacity and could require substantial investment to meet updated environmental standards.

The industry was therefore in the curious position of apparently having spare capacity while simultaneously facing the possibility of losing a substantial proportion of it and the problem wasn't simply ageing machinery, it was money.

The submission suggested that specialist treatment plants needed to operate at approximately 90% of their capacity to generate sufficient cash. It also argued that competition had placed considerable downward pressure on treatment charges, while the value of materials recovered from refrigerators was no longer sufficient to cover the costs of processing them.

These were industry estimates rather than independently audited national figures, but the concerns were remarkably clear. The system needed substantial investment, yet the commercial arrangements underpinning it were making that investment increasingly difficult to justify and six years later, Britain finds itself surrounded by unwanted refrigerators.

The race to be the cheapest

There's a peculiar obsession within parts of the waste management industry with being the cheapest. Whether it's collecting general waste, emptying a skip or recycling electrical equipment, the temptation to undercut a competitor can sometimes appear stronger than the desire to make a reasonable profit.

Competition is a good thing. It encourages efficiency, innovation and better customer service. Nobody wants an industry in which operators can charge whatever they please without being challenged but there is a difference between providing a service efficiently and providing it at a price that cannot support the long-term cost of delivering it and refrigerator recycling is a particularly good example.

A specialist facility requires expensive machinery, trained personnel, environmental monitoring, maintenance, insurance and considerable investment in equipment that will eventually need replacing. Most of those costs don't disappear simply because fewer fridges arrive through the gate. A plant processing half its potential capacity doesn't suddenly enjoy half the maintenance costs, half the insurance bill or half the investment requirements and if the fees it receives are continually pushed down, the financial consequences can become increasingly uncomfortable.

The waste industry has an unhealthy habit of concentrating on the price of today's collection while overlooking the cost of maintaining tomorrow's treatment capacity.

It's worth distinguishing that the price paid to a contractor to collect a fridge is not the same as the gate fee received by the specialist facility that ultimately processes it. Commercial collections and the high-volume household recycling system also operate under different contractual arrangements and every stage of that chain needs sufficient income to operate responsibly. A waste contractor can be extremely efficient but efficiency alone cannot finance the replacement of a multimillion-pound treatment plant and if the economics no longer justify operating that plant, somebody eventually has to explain where the fridges are supposed to go.

Who actually pays for recycling?

Under Britain's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations, producers of electrical equipment have responsibilities for financing collection and treatment through Producer Compliance Schemes. Companies placing electrical products onto the market contribute towards the cost of dealing with those products when they become waste. In practice however, the system involves manufacturers, compliance schemes, retailers, waste contractors, specialist treatment companies and local authorities and like most commercial arrangements, everybody has an interest in controlling costs.

A manufacturer wants to avoid unnecessary compliance costs; a producer compliance scheme has to manage its financial obligations; a contractor needs to remain competitive; and a treatment facility needs enough throughput to remain commercially viable. Taken individually, each of those objectives is entirely reasonable. The difficulty comes when they all push in the same direction.

Unimetals' liquidation involved financial difficulties across a much wider metals-recycling business, while the fires at other facilities were separate operational events. It would be unfair to attribute those failures directly to low fridge-treatment charges without further evidence but the economic warnings made in 2020 deserve serious reflexion and consideration. An industry already concerned about investment, ageing infrastructure and squeezed treatment fees may have considerably less resilience when unexpected events occur and unexpected events, especially in the waste industry have an unfortunate habit of occurring.

The difference between collecting and recycling

Britain hasn't suddenly stopped collecting refrigerators because they have become impossible to recycle. According to Material Focus, 142,090 tonnes of household cooling appliances were recorded as collected through the WEEE system during 2025, slightly exceeding the Government's collection target. That's a substantial quantity of material entering the system but collecting an appliance and completing its treatment are not the same thing.

The collection statistics don't tell us precisely how much spare processing capacity existed or whether sufficient contingency arrangements were available if major facilities closed. A national recycling target can therefore be achieved while the infrastructure required to deliver future treatment remains vulnerable and once the available treatment capacity becomes insufficient, the problem certainly doesn't simply disappear i It moves firstly to the recycling centre, then to temporary storage facilities and eventually into increasingly conspicuous stockpiles, but the refrigerators are still there, they're simply waiting for somebody to do something with them.

The Government's temporary solution

In July 2026, the Environment Agency introduced Regulatory Position Statement 375 allowing additional temporary storage arrangements for waste refrigeration equipment in England, subject to specified environmental safeguards. The arrangements have subsequently been extended for review by April 2027 - a practical response to an immediate problem, but it doesn't provide additional processing capacity, rather, it simply allows more appliances to be stored while the industry works towards clearing the backlog and while storage may be necessary, it brings its own costs, environmental responsibilities and logistical difficulties.

Local authorities have found themselves managing appliances that should ordinarily have moved into the recycling system, while the shortage has exposed weaknesses in the arrangements between councils and producer compliance schemes.

Fortunately, there are signs of investment. In September 2026, Enva announced a further £9.5 million investment in fridge-recycling infrastructure, including an additional treatment line at Grantham expected to become operational in February 2028. The company is also developing a new facility in Dartford, scheduled to begin operations in February 2027, with a planned annual treatment capacity of approximately 35,000 tonnes of WEEE and refrigerators; developments that should help restore some of the capacity and flexibility the industry has lost but building a specialist recycling facility takes time and the need to invest in new treatment capacity raises another question whether earlier investment supported by more sustainable commercial arrangements, have reduced the severity of the present crisis?

Perhaps the cheapest isn't always the best

For years, waste management has been encouraged to become more efficient, more competitive and more economical but there comes a point where reducing the cost of a service risks undermining the infrastructure on which that service depends. The cheapest quotation is not necessarily the one that delivers the best value, particularly where safe, compliant treatment and long-term investment are concerned. There's little benefit in saving a few pounds on recycling today if the consequences include treatment shortages, additional storage charges, interrupted collections and expensive emergency arrangements tomorrow.

The answer isn't to abandon competition or simply allow operators to increase their charges.

It's to recognise that a sustainable recycling system requires sustainable businesses, adequate processing capacity, realistic investment returns and sufficient contingency arrangements when things go wrong. That may mean longer term contracts, more transparent reporting of available treatment capacity and greater consideration of the financial resilience of specialist recyclers - it certainly means looking beyond the lowest price because if a company cannot afford to maintain its machinery, replace its equipment or invest in the future, the price it offers today may become rather irrelevant tomorrow.

And perhaps that is the lesson Britain's growing mountains of unwanted refrigerators are trying to teach us.

We've spent years asking how cheaply we can recycle a fridge. Perhaps we should have been asking how much it costs to ensure we can always recycle one. After all, there's little satisfaction in getting a bargain collection price if the appliance subsequently spends the next twelve months sitting in a field in Norfolk. More like this (fridges) - link - more like this (WEEE) - link - link - more like this (Norfolk) - link

(GUF) REVOLUTION OF THE LITTLE BUCKETS

Image inspiration - Tarsila do Amaral - link

A revolution needs something people can rally around. A flag, a leader with conviction, a stirring speech - or a plastic bucket with a lid.

The name is Revolução dos Baldinhos (the Revolution of the Little Buckets) and behind it lies a story about food scraps, community spirit and deciding that the local rats had enjoyed enough free dinners.

It began in the Chico Mendes community in the Monte Cristo area of Florianópolis, southern Brazil. In 2008, accumulated rubbish and exposed food waste had helped create a serious rat problem. According to CEPAGRO, the organisation that helped develop the project, an outbreak of leptospirosis had caused two deaths. Residents, health workers, school representatives and community organisers came together to consider what could be done and collectively decided that simply treating the infestation wouldn't solve the underlying problem while food remained available in the streets - they needed to close the restaurant.

Enter the little buckets - (Baldinhos)

The response was simple and easy - give households lidded buckets in which to separate their food scraps - job done. In the model documented by Fundação Banco do Brasil, residents then emptied those buckets into larger containers at neighbourhood collection points which in turn were collected twice a week and taken to a community composting area. The finished compost then went back to household gardens and school growing spaces, with some also offered for sale.

Young people from the community found paid work helping explain the system, collect the material and turn it into something useful. Food scraps that had previously contributed to a neighbourhood problem became a resource for growing plants. The bucket was the visible part but the organisation behind it was what made the difference.

Brazil’s Ministry of Regional Development documents the project’s use of thermophilic composting in static piles with passive aeration. In less technical terms, that simply means a managed process in which microorganisms break down the organic material, generate heat and receive oxygen through the structure of the pile.

There's considerably more involved than emptying yesterday’s dinner into a heap and hoping for the best. The apparently simple bucket system depended on people separating their scraps properly, collections taking place reliably and somebody knowing how to manage the material afterwards. It also depended on residents understanding why they were being asked to change their habits. That last point is easy to overlook. A container can be delivered in minutes. Trust usually takes longer.

The women behind the buckets

Community coordinators including Cintia Aldaci da Cruz and Ana Karolina da Conceição helped make the initiative part of neighbourhood life. Reporting on their work describes conversations during collections that went beyond waste: visits became opportunities to hear about residents’ difficulties and help connect people with support.

This was/is recycling with a familiar face: neighbours explaining the system to neighbours, food scraps being composted locally and the finished compost helping gardens and schools grow. Residents could see where their kitchen waste went and what it became; a tangible connection between yesterday’s leftovers and tomorrow’s vegetables.

By June 2018, CEPAGRO was reporting that the initiative had diverted hundreds of tonnes of organic waste from landfill over its first decade. Its account cited research recording 437 tonnes composted between 2009 and 2013, followed by an average of around six tonnes a month in subsequent years. These are historical figures, rather than a measurement of what the project handles today but they demonstrate that this was considerably more than a few enthusiastic households with a compost heap.

The idea then travelled. In November 2025, the Federal Farroupilha Institute’s Alegrete campus described a food waste composting initiative inspired by the original Revolution of the Little Buckets. Collection buckets had been placed in campus kitchens and other locations, with staff and students involved in collecting the contents. A neighbourhood response to a local problem had become something other communities could learn from.

Goodwill still needs a budget

There's a temptation with stories like this to conclude that all we need is community spirit and a plentiful supply of buckets but unfortunately neither pays the wages and in its 2018 account, CEPAGRO explicitly identified financial sustainability as a challenge.

A wider municipal composting project included temporary paid support for the community initiative with plans to investigate payment for the environmental services it provided as a successful community project still needs space, equipment, skills and dependable funding. Admiring the people involved should include recognising the value of their labour.

What can a bucket teach us?

The Little Buckets Revolution brought people together to tackle a serious neighbourhood problem creating useful compost and paid work along the way. That deserves recognition but it also raises a question that reaches well beyond Brazil: are we getting better at reducing food waste or just better at using the food we waste?

The distinction matters. A bucket containing vegetable peelings, eggshells and coffee grounds tells a different story from one filled with untouched meals, mouldy bread and vegetables bought with good intentions but abandoned in the fridge. Both might produce useful compost but some of those contents should have fed somebody first.

Composting and AD can recover value from discarded food. What it cannot do is recover the meal that somebody could have eaten or undo all the work and resources that went into producing it. That creates a potential blind spot in how we celebrate success. More tonnes collected for composting may mean that an existing waste stream is being managed better but it doesn't by itself tell us whether less food is being wasted. To establish that, we also need to know what is going into those buckets—and whether the avoidable portion is shrinking.

None of this diminishes what the people of Chico Mendes achieved. Their immediate task was to stop exposed food scraps feeding rats and threatening their community’s health. They built a practical response with benefits that extended into gardens, schools and local employment. Their story should encourage us to ask two questions about our own food waste: are we finding a better destination for it, and are we producing less of it in the first place?

Yesterday’s leftovers helping to grow tomorrow’s vegetables is a lovely outcome but yesterday’s dinner being eaten yesterday would have been even better. More like this (food) - link - more like this (Brazil) - link - more like this (composting) - link

(GUF) KAMIKATSU

Image inspiration - Katsushika Hokusai - link

If the recent troubles in Birmingham have taught us anything, it's that when the bin men stop turning up, things can get unpleasant rather quickly. Waste accumulates, patience evaporates and suddenly everybody appreciates a service they barely gave a second thought to when it was running properly.

But what if the dustmen never turned up in the first place? Not because of industrial action, council cutbacks or a shortage of drivers but because nobody expected them to? Welcome to Kamikatsu, a small town tucked away in the mountains of Japan where the familiar sight of a waste collection vehicle trundling down the road is conspicuous by its absence.

In Kamikatsu residents take their rubbish to a central collection facility, separate it into an extraordinary number of categories and, in turn, have developed a recycling system that has attracted international attention; not least because it challenges our 'Western' assumptions about waste, recycling and what happens when responsibility for waste moves from the doorstep back into the hands of the people producing it.

A town that decided to do things differently

Kamikatsu is situated on the Japanese island of Shikoku, surrounded by forested mountains and spectacular scenery. With a population of just 1,262 people, it's considerably smaller than most British villages, let alone Birmingham but its reputation in waste management circles is enormous.

To give you an idea of its size, Kamikatsu’s 1,262 inhabitants would account for less than 1% of Reading’s population. We're talking about a small rural community, despite its designation as a town.

Back in the 1990s, much of the town's rubbish was disposed of by open burning. Small incinerators were subsequently introduced but concerns about dioxin emissions and the costs of waste disposal forced the local authorities to reconsider their approach. Rather than simply building another incinerator, the town increasingly concentrated on separating waste and finding alternative uses for the materials it contained.

In 2003, Kamikatsu became the first municipality in Japan to make a formal Zero Waste Declaration, setting itself the ambitious target of eliminating waste sent for incineration or landfill by 2020. It was an extraordinary commitment for such a small community and one that would fundamentally change how its residents dealt with their rubbish.

Forty-four different places to put your rubbish

In England, household recycling can still be confusing. Does the plastic film go in the recycling bin - what about the lid from a yoghurt pot and why is one council perfectly happy to accept something that another refuses? The government’s Simpler Recycling reforms are intended to tackle this confusion by making the materials collected for recycling consistent across England. A welcome ambition although knowing which bin to approach still clearly poses a challenge too big for some.

Kamikatsu has taken waste separation to an entirely new level. At the town's Zero Waste Centre, residents separate their rubbish into 14 broad types and 44 individual categories, according to the facility's March 2026 guidance. Aluminium cans, steel cans, newspapers, cardboard, plastic packaging, PET bottles and different colours of glass all have their designated places. Even paper cups, cartons with metallic linings and disposable wooden chopsticks are identified separately. The containers are expected to be clean and dry, reducing contamination and making the recovered materials more suitable for recycling.

Food waste is dealt with differently. Rather than being collected from households, kitchen scraps are generally composted at home, supported by the town's efforts to encourage domestic composting systems; clearly, this all requires considerably more effort than wheeling a bin to the kerb once a week. Residents normally transport their rubbish to the centre themselves, often by car before sorting it into the appropriate containers - not the sort of arrangement that would have British householders queuing enthusiastically at their local council offices to sign up, nevertheless, the results are very impressive.

More than 80% recycled

Kamikatsu reports a recycling rate exceeding 80%, a remarkable achievement for a community that once relied heavily on burning its waste. The precise figure needs some qualification - the reported recycling rate measures the proportion of waste diverted from incineration and landfill; that in itself doesn't necessarily prove that every kilogram ultimately becomes a new product nevertheless, the amount of material separated for recovery is considerable and perhaps just as interesting is the effect the system has on people's behaviour.

When domestic waste is placed in a bin and collected by somebody else, it's easy to forget about it. Once the collection vehicle disappears down the street, the waste effectively disappears from our lives.

In Kamikatsu, residents encounter the consequences of their purchasing and disposal decisions every time they visit the waste centre. It's more difficult to ignore excessive packaging when you've just spent twenty minutes separating it into different containers. The intention/thinking behind Kamikatsu isn't simply to recycle more, but to encourage people to produce less waste in the first place.

A recycling centre with a difference

In 2020, Kamikatsu opened a new Zero Waste Centre called WHY, designed by architect Hiroshi Nakamura. Viewed from above, the complex resembles a giant question mark, deliberately encouraging visitors to question what they consume and discard. The building itself reflects the town's philosophy. Approximately 700 reclaimed fixtures, including old windows and doors collected from local buildings, were incorporated into its distinctive façade. But perhaps its most charming feature is the Kuru Kuru Shop, where residents can leave unwanted but usable possessions for somebody else to take away free of charge.

Clothing, household items and other reusable goods get another chance to be useful rather than entering the waste stream and what greater pleasure could there be than seeing a neighbour stroll past wearing your discarded tracky bottoms? It's a wonderfully simple concept. Something that has become surplus to one person's requirements might be exactly what somebody else needs.

The centre even includes a small hotel, allowing visitors to experience the town's approach to waste management for themselves. A holiday built around sorting rubbish isn't my first choice but it has certainly helped put Kamikatsu on the international map.

Is it really that simple?

Kamikatsu hasn't completely eliminated waste requiring end of life disposal. Approximately 20% remains difficult to recycle, including contaminated materials and sanitary products due to practical difficulties. The system also has its challenges. In a town with an ageing population, not everyone can drive to the collection centre or manage the lifting and sorting involved; to combat this, a transport assistance scheme supports qualifying households and neighbours help one another.

Clearly, a system built around approximately 1,300 residents in a rural Japanese community can't simply be transferred to a British city of more than a million people and nor should we forget that an effective, reliable household waste collection service provides enormous public health and environmental benefits. Perhaps the answer isn't to get rid of the dustmen, but to think more carefully about what we're asking them to collect.

A different way of looking at rubbish

One of the biggest challenges in waste management has always been persuading people that what happens to their waste after it leaves their premises actually matters. Kamikatsu approaches that challenge from a completely different direction; making waste visible encourages people to take responsibility for it and demonstrates what can happen when a community collectively decides to change its habits.

In my opinion, Kamikatsu's greatest achievement isn't its recycling percentage but its unusual collection arrangements and its extraordinary recycling centre. It's the simple idea that waste is something we should be thinking about before we throw it away, before we buy it even rather than something we stop thinking about afterwards and whilst Birmingham's recent experiences demonstrate how important regular refuse collections are, this little Japanese town offers a rather different perspective. More like this (Japan) - link - more like this (Birmingham) - link - more like this (waste collection) - link - more like this (Japanese waste) - link

(GUF) WASTE INCINERATION - A BURNING QUESTION

Image inspiration - Salvador Dalí - link

For decades, waste incineration has been presented as an alternative to landfill; turning unwanted rubbish into useful energy, but around the world opposition is growing. Are campaigners raising legitimate environmental and public health concerns, or overlooking the important role incineration plays in modern waste management?

Across Britain and increasingly around the world, waste incinerators are finding themselves at the centre of a growing environmental debate. Campaigners are questioning their impact on public health, carbon emissions, recycling and local communities. Some want tighter regulation, others are calling for restrictions on new facilities, while more determined opponents would like to see incineration phased out altogether.

The international picture is certainly changing. Scotland announced a policy opposing further municipal incineration capacity in 2022, with very limited exceptions; Wales introduced a moratorium on new large scale energy-from-waste facilities of 10 MW or more in 2021; and Denmark announced plans in 2020 to reduce incineration capacity in line with an anticipated reduction in residual waste.

On 13 October 2026, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) published The Burn Book: Incinerators that Threaten the Climate, Public Health, and our Finances, examining twenty existing and proposed incinerators around the world. The report formed part of an international campaign challenging the environmental and financial consequences of burning waste. GAIA is an organisation openly opposed to waste incineration and its findings should be considered in that context. Nevertheless, the report illustrates the international reach of the debate. Restricting new facilities is not the same as banning existing incineration, however, and many countries continue to invest in energy-from-waste infrastructure.

In England, incineration has become an increasingly important part of the waste-management system. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, England's local authorities sent approximately 12.7 million tonnes of waste for incineration during 2024/25, representing 50.3% of local authority waste. By comparison, 10.4 million tonnes, or 41.2%, were sent for recycling, composting or reuse, while approximately 1.4 million tonnes went to landfill.

Those figures illustrate how significantly the country's approach to waste disposal has changed but with incineration now accounting for more than half of England's local authority waste management, it seems reasonable to question whether our reliance on this technology has become a tad excessive. Rather than simply accepting or rejecting the arguments of anti-incineration campaigners, perhaps the more useful approach is to examine the principal objections and establish what the available evidence actually tells us.

1. Are waste incinerators dangerous to public health?

Public health is understandably one of the most emotive issues surrounding incineration.

The argument against incineration

Burning waste produces a range of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, acid gases, heavy metals and potentially dioxins and furans (specifically polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). These substances can be harmful and communities living near incinerators often express concerns about long-term exposure, particularly among children, elderly residents and people with respiratory conditions.

Historically, poorly controlled incinerators were responsible for significant environmental pollution. Consequently, concerns about emissions are not without foundation.

The counterargument

Modern municipal incinerators operate under considerably stricter environmental regulations than their predecessors. Sophisticated combustion controls, filtration systems, chemical treatment, continuous monitoring of key emissions and periodic sampling are intended to minimise the release of pollutants. In June 2025, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) published an updated systematic review of epidemiological research undertaken in Britain and the European Union. Its conclusion supported the agency's existing position that modern, well-operated and regulated municipal waste incinerators do not represent a significant public health risk.

The review found no clear evidence linking emissions from modern facilities with increased rates of cancer, adverse birth outcomes or other investigated illnesses in surrounding communities. It also noted that such incinerators make a relatively small contribution to local air-pollution concentrations compared with other sources. That's an important finding, although an absence of clear evidence does not mean every potential health effect has been conclusively excluded.

Where does that leave the argument?

Health concerns deserve proper investigation, particularly where facilities breach permit conditions or where communities are already exposed to pollution from several sources. However, the assertion that modern, properly regulated incinerators are routinely causing serious illness is not currently supported by clear epidemiological evidence. That doesn't eliminate the need for effective regulation - it reinforces it.

2. Does burning waste make climate change worse?

This is an increasingly important part of the debate.

The argument against incineration

Burning waste releases carbon dioxide. In particular, plastics manufactured from fossil fuels release fossil CO₂ when incinerated. Unlike recyclable materials, which may be processed into new products, incinerated plastics release their carbon into the atmosphere.

As Britain reduces its reliance on fossil-fuel electricity generation, the climate benefit of producing electricity by burning waste is also changing. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has highlighted the increasing contribution of energy-from-waste facilities to carbon emissions and recommended preventing additional capacity unless a viable route to carbon capture and storage can be established.

In its June 2026 report to Parliament, the CCC observed that emissions reductions achieved through diverting waste from landfill had been partially offset by increasing emissions from energy-from-waste facilities. There's also an important regulatory development. The government had intended to bring waste incineration within the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) from January 2028, introducing a financial cost for the sector's relevant greenhouse gas emissions, however, in August 2026, the UK ETS Authority confirmed that implementation would be delayed beyond 2028, with no revised commencement date announced.

Although a voluntary monitoring, reporting and verification period began in January 2026, the postponement leaves operators and local authorities uncertain about future carbon costs, potentially complicating long-term investment decisions and waste-management contracts.

The counterargument

Incineration however cannot be assessed against a world in which waste has simply ceased to exist. Much of the material currently incinerated would otherwise require alternative treatment, potentially including landfill. Organic materials decomposing in landfill produce methane, a particularly powerful greenhouse gas. Although modern landfill facilities capture a proportion of that gas, some inevitably escapes into the atmosphere. By diverting biodegradable waste from landfill and generating useful energy, incineration can avoid emissions that would otherwise occur, however, the relative advantage depends heavily on the composition of the waste, the efficiency of energy recovery, landfill methane capture and the type of energy being displaced (ideally the organic material should go to AD and IVC).

Where does that leave the argument?

Historically, incineration has offered climate benefits compared with landfilling mixed biodegradable waste, particularly by avoiding methane emissions from decomposing organic material. However, England's Simpler Recycling legislation now requires separate food-waste collections, reducing the amount of biodegradable material entering the residual waste stream. While incineration continues to generate useful energy, its carbon emissions remain a concern, and the climate advantages of energy recovery are diminishing as electricity generation becomes increasingly cleaner.

Carbon capture may eventually help address this problem. Indeed, the government has supported plans to connect the Protos Energy Recovery Facility to the HyNet carbon transport and storage network, with operation anticipated in 2029 but carbon capture must ultimately be commercially viable and successfully deployed rather than merely included in future plans. The climate objection is supported by measurable evidence and certainly deserves serious attention.

3. Are we burning materials that could have been recycled?

There's an obvious frustration in the thought of valuable resources being destroyed when they could have been reused.

The argument against incineration

Residual waste frequently contains materials such as plastics, paper, cardboard and metals that could potentially be recycled. Once most of these materials enter an incinerator, their value as recoverable raw materials is permanently lost. Campaigners argue that incineration effectively rewards a failure to separate recyclable materials, providing an outlet for waste that should have been recovered further up the waste hierarchy.

The counterargument

There's a big difference between a material being theoretically recyclable and being suitable for recycling in the condition in which it is discarded. Paper heavily contaminated with food, composite packaging, mixed or difficult-to-identify plastics and residues rejected by recycling facilities can present considerable practical and economic difficulties. Recycling facilities themselves generate residual waste, even when householders and businesses have separated materials correctly.

Energy-from-waste facilities provide a treatment outlet for such material. In addition, some resources survive the incineration process. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals can be recovered from bottom ash, with Defra reporting approximately 221,000 tonnes of metals recovered and recycled from incineration residues within England's household waste recycling statistics for 2024.

Where does that leave the argument?

There's little justification for burning materials that can be readily and economically recycled through an available, functioning collection and processing system. Equally, describing everything that enters an incinerator as recyclable would be misleading. The proper question is not simply how much material is being burned but how much could realistically have been prevented, reused or recycled before reaching the furnace.

4. Does incineration discourage recycling?

This objection is closely related to the previous one, but it raises a different concern.

The argument against incineration

Large energy-from-waste facilities require substantial investment and generally operate over several decades. Some long-term waste treatment contracts include minimum tonnage commitments or payment provisions designed to protect the operator's investment. Critics argue that such arrangements can discourage improvements in recycling because local authorities may remain financially committed to delivering waste to an incinerator. In other words, if a council is already paying to burn a certain quantity of waste, reducing that quantity might not produce the savings expected.

The counterargument

There is no inevitable conflict between high recycling rates and the use of energy-from-waste facilities. Several countries, including Germany and Denmark, have historically combined extensive recycling systems with substantial incineration capacity.

A 2023 study, Has Incineration Replaced Recycling? Evidence from OECD Countries, examined the relationship between incineration and recycling across developed economies. Its statistical analysis identified a negative relationship but the estimated effect on recycling rates was not statistically significant. The researchers also noted that individual countries displayed differing patterns which, in itself doesn't prove incineration never discourages recycling. It means the relationship is more complicated than simply assuming that every additional tonne of incineration capacity represents a tonne lost to recycling.

Where does that leave the argument?

The structure of contracts and the incentives they create deserve scrutiny. A waste treatment agreement should not financially penalise a local authority for successfully reducing waste or improving recycling. However, evidence that some contractual arrangements create poor incentives is not evidence that all incineration facilities undermine recycling. The problem may lie as much in how waste management services are financed and contracted as in the technology itself.

5. Are we building more incinerators than we actually need?

This may prove to be one of the most consequential questions facing the British waste industry.

The argument against incineration

The government is attempting to reduce residual waste through packaging reforms, separate food-waste collections, producer responsibility and improved recycling. If these measures succeed, in theory, less waste should require incineration however, energy-from-waste facilities are expensive, long-lived assets that cannot readily be converted into other types of treatment infrastructure. This creates the possibility of spending hundreds of millions of pounds building facilities that may eventually compete for a shrinking quantity of residual waste.

In December 2024, Defra projected that England could have approximately 18.8 million tonnes of annual energy-recovery capacity by 2035. It also anticipated a reduction in residual waste arising from the government's resource-efficiency and packaging reforms.
The concern is that if we successfully reduce the amount of waste requiring disposal, what happens to the facilities built on the assumption that those volumes will continue?

The counterargument

Forecasts are not guarantees. Recycling targets have repeatedly proved difficult to achieve, changes to packaging systems take time, and some materials will remain unsuitable for recycling even under a much-improved collection system. In addition, waste treatment infrastructure must accommodate regional differences, commercial waste, maintenance shutdowns and variations in the composition and quantity of material collected. A national estimate of available capacity does not necessarily establish that suitable capacity exists in every region.

Defra's December 2024 assessment estimated 19.4 million tonnes of municipal residual waste in England by 2035, compared with 18.8 million tonnes of projected energy-recovery capacity. Those figures do not demonstrate an immediate national surplus, although Defra's wider assessment of residual-waste treatment capacity includes other disposal and treatment routes.

Where does that leave the argument?

There is a credible risk of future overcapacity, particularly if waste prevention and recycling improve substantially but establishing whether an individual proposed facility is unnecessary requires more than comparing two national totals. The location, type of waste accepted, expected lifespan, regional treatment capacity and likely future waste volumes all matter.

Scotland provides a particularly interesting example. On 30 September 2026, Environmental Standards Scotland published an update on its investigation into the country's incineration capacity. It had previously identified concerns that gaps in planning and environmental permitting arrangements, together with the absence of an indicative national residual-waste treatment cap, could allow capacity to increase without sufficient consideration of Scotland's future requirements.

The Scottish Government has since published updated capacity analysis and is developing a residual waste plan, expected in 2027, which will include work towards establishing an indicative treatment cap. The regulator acknowledged that progress was being made but confirmed that important elements remained unfinished which illustrates the difficulty of balancing long-term infrastructure planning against future waste-reduction ambitions.

New investments should therefore be assessed against realistic forecasts that account for both successful recycling reforms and the possibility of slower progress.

6. Is energy from waste genuinely useful energy recovery?

The description energy from waste is central to the industry's justification for incineration, but how much useful energy does the process actually recover?

The argument against incineration

Critics point out that electricity generation from waste is not particularly efficient compared with some other forms of energy production. A considerable proportion of the energy released during combustion can be lost as heat, particularly where facilities have no practical outlet for it. There is also the question of whether recovering energy from materials is preferable to retaining those materials within the economy through recycling.

After all, the waste hierarchy generally places recycling above energy recovery for good reason.

The counterargument

Incinerators do generate useful energy and there are important distinctions between different facilities. Electricity only plants recover energy through steam-driven turbines, while combined heat-and-power facilities can also supply heat to industrial processes, commercial buildings or district heating networks. Where there is a reliable demand for heat, overall energy utilisation can be substantially improved.

Importantly, incineration provides a means of extracting useful energy from waste that might otherwise have been landfilled without recovering its remaining value. There is also an operational benefit in having an established treatment system capable of accepting residual waste that cannot currently be diverted into reuse or recycling.

Where does that leave the argument?

The energy benefit is real, but it varies considerably between facilities. An incinerator supplying both electricity and useful heat cannot simply be judged in the same way as one generating electricity alone. As the electricity grid decarbonises, the quantity of usable heat recovered, the carbon intensity of the waste and the potential for carbon capture become increasingly important. Energy recovery should be demonstrated through performance rather than assumed from the name of the facility.

7. Does incineration merely turn rubbish into another form of waste?

There's a common misconception that incineration makes waste disappear. It doesn't.

The argument against incineration

Incineration produces residual materials, principally bottom ash and air-pollution-control residues, some of which contain concentrated pollutants requiring specialist treatment or disposal. According to Environment Agency guidance, bottom ash typically represents approximately 25% of the original waste input by weight, with air-pollution-control residues and associated fly ash accounting for a further 2.5%. Actual operating figures can differ however.

Tolvik Consulting's UK Energy from Waste Statistics 2024, based largely on operators' annual performance reports, recorded outputs equivalent to 19.2% bottom ash and 3.1% air-pollution-control residues by weight. These figures demonstrate that although incineration substantially reduces the volume of waste, significant quantities of residual material still require careful management.

The counterargument

Not all incineration residues are hazardous, nor are they necessarily destined for landfill. Following appropriate treatment and processing, suitable bottom ash can be used as a substitute for primary aggregates in construction, while ferrous and non-ferrous metals can be recovered for recycling. Indeed, Tolvik's 2024 report indicated that approximately 99% of the 3.2 million tonnes of UK incinerator bottom ash generated that year was sent for recovery. That's a substantial quantity of material being directed away from straightforward disposal, although being sent for recovery does not necessarily mean that every tonne has already been successfully recycled into a new product.

Additionally, incineration substantially reduces the original volume of waste, decreasing the amount of material requiring final disposal and the associated demand for landfill space.

Where does that leave the argument?

Incineration certainly does not eliminate the need for responsible waste management but neither is it accurate to suggest that the process simply replaces the original waste with an equivalent amount of hazardous material. The important questions concern the composition of the residues, how safely they are managed, how much can genuinely be recovered and whether subsequent uses meet appropriate environmental standards.

8. Are local communities being asked to bear an unfair burden?

Not every objection concerns emissions or recycling. Some concern the location and everyday operation of facilities.

The argument against incineration

Residents near waste treatment facilities may experience additional heavy goods vehicle movements, noise, visual intrusion and concerns about odour and litter and there's also an environmental justice argument. A 2020 investigation by Greenpeace's investigative publication Unearthed found that waste incinerators were approximately three times more likely to be located in Britain's most deprived neighbourhoods than its least deprived. The investigation included several categories of incinerator, not solely modern municipal energy-from-waste facilities, but its findings raised important questions about the distribution of waste infrastructure.

Campaigners question whether communities already experiencing significant industrial activity are being asked to accept an unfair share of the country's waste-management burden.

The counterargument

Incinerators require suitable industrial sites, transport access, appropriate separation from sensitive developments and the infrastructure necessary to operate safely. Industrial land is not evenly distributed across the country, so differences in facility locations do not, by themselves, establish that individual planning decisions have been discriminatory. Neither does the presence of an incinerator automatically prove that it is responsible for all pollution or nuisance experienced in an industrial neighbourhood. Some facilities may also provide local employment, infrastructure investment and opportunities to supply heat to nearby developments.

Where does that leave the argument?

The unequal geographical distribution of waste infrastructure is a legitimate subject for investigation. Communities should have meaningful opportunities to examine proposals, question environmental assessments and understand how operators will manage emissions, traffic and nuisance. Even a facility operating within its environmental permit can raise valid concerns about its cumulative effect on local quality of life.

So, should we stop building incinerators?

Having examined the principal objections, it becomes difficult to support either extreme of the debate without qualification. There's credible evidence supporting concerns about carbon emissions, the destruction of recoverable materials and the potential consequences of long-term investment in excessive capacity.There are also legitimate questions about the fairness of facility locations, waste-treatment contracts and the environmental management of residues however, the evidence does not support treating every modern incinerator as an unacceptable public health hazard, nor does it establish that incineration inevitably prevents successful recycling.

If we stopped incinerating residual waste tomorrow, where would that material go?

We cannot assume that all waste currently burned could immediately be recycled. Some would require additional sorting and treatment capacity. Some might be exported for disposal or recovery elsewhere, while some could return to landfill.

That would hardly represent an environmental achievement if the result were simply to exchange one set of problems for another. Neither should we forget the contribution energy-from-waste facilities have made to reducing Britain's dependence on landfill. They have provided a practical treatment route for millions of tonnes of material that might otherwise have been buried.

But that does not mean the future of incineration should necessarily resemble its past. The expansion of separate collections, improvements in packaging design, advances in recycling technology and the growing importance of waste prevention should all reduce the quantity of material requiring final treatment. As these improvements take effect, the need for incineration capacity should be reassessed accordingly.

There's a meaningful distinction between maintaining sufficient facilities to manage genuinely unrecoverable waste and constructing additional facilities whose economic success may depend on continuing to generate large volumes of it.

The purpose of a circular economy is to keep materials in productive use for as long as possible.
Incineration may remain an important part of dealing with the waste we cannot avoid, but it should never become a reason to avoid dealing with the waste we can. Perhaps the most important question is not whether we should stop burning waste, but how much waste we should still need to burn in the first place? More like this (incineration) - link - note like this (landfill) - link

(GUF) LITHUANIA - HOW TO OPERATE A DEPOSIT RETURN SCHEME

Original illustration inspired by the Symbolist art of Lithuanian painter and composer M. K. Čiurlionis (1875–1911) - link

Last time, I wrote about Brazil's extraordinary success in recycling aluminium drinks cans; an excellent example of what can be achieved when a material has genuine commercial value and a well established collection network.

This time, I'm visiting a different country, with a significantly different approach - Lithuania - a Baltic nation with a population of approximately 2.9 million people, Lithuania has spent the past decade demonstrating something that should interest everyone involved in waste management, not least, Britain. Give people a simple, convenient reason to return their empty packaging and the results can be remarkable; and in Lithuania, it all started with ten cents.

A Small Deposit, an Enormous Difference

On 1 February 2016, Lithuania introduced a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) covering eligible plastic, metal and glass drinks containers. The principle was effectively the same as most DRS schemes; when someone purchased a drink they paid an additional €0.10 deposit, return the empty container to a participating collection point and they received their ten cents back - no complicated environmental philosophy - no requirement for consumers to understand polymer chemistry - just a simple financial transaction.

Before the scheme was introduced, approximately 34% of Lithuania's PET drinks containers were being collected through the existing system. For comparison, Britain is already starting from a considerably stronger position; according to recycling charity RECOUP's 2024 UK 'Household Plastic Packaging Collection Survey', an estimated 70–80% of plastic drinks bottles were collected for recycling in 2023, without a Deposit Return Scheme.

Although the figures are not perfectly like for like, they highlight an important distinction. Lithuania was attempting to transform a poorly performing collection system. Britain is proposing to introduce an entirely new collection infrastructure into a country where a substantial majority of plastic drinks bottles are already being recovered. This doesn't mean Britain's DRS can't deliver environmental benefits, particularly through reduced littering and improved material quality, but it raises the question whether the additional material recovered justifies the considerable investment in new machines, transport, collection and processing infrastructure, particularly when much of that material is already being collected through existing recycling services?

34 to 92

By the end of 2016, the new Lithuanian scheme had achieved a 74.3% return rate across eligible drinks containers. By the end of 2017, that figure had climbed to 91.9% and this wasn't simply an impressive opening performance followed by a gradual decline. According to reverse vending technology company TOMRA, Lithuania's return rates at the end of 2025 were:

• 90% of PET drinks containers
• 91% of metal drinks cans
• 84% of non-reusable glass drinks containers

Across the scheme as a whole, the reported return rate was approximately 90% and ten years after its introduction, the system continues to deliver.

More Than 700 Million Reasons to Celebrate

According to Lithuania's deposit system administrator, Užstato Sistemos Administratorius (USAD), consumers returned approximately 708.58 million drinks containers during 2024 which included nearly 360 million PET bottles, approximately 303 million aluminium cans, more than 45 million glass bottles and around 800,000 steel cans.

For a country of fewer than three million people, that represents an extraordinary volume of material being returned through a dedicated collection system and there's another benefit; much of this material is collected separately from household mixed recycling, helping preserve its quality and making it more attractive to reprocessors. Anyone who has spent time around a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) will understand why this matters.

There's a considerable difference between receiving relatively clean, identifiable drinks containers and attempting to recover them from a mixture of food contaminated packaging, shredded paper, broken glass and whatever else somebody has bizarrely decided is recyclable. Optical sorting equipment is clever but it isn't magic.

Making Recycling Convenient

One of Lithuania's strengths is the accessibility of its return network. The system operates largely through retailers, with reverse vending machines allowing consumers to return eligible containers and recover their deposits. Like Britain's DRS, larger shops and rural retailers have return obligations while smaller retailers can also participate. Importantly, the deposit isn't simply lost if someone doesn't want to spend it immediately. Refund vouchers can be used towards shopping or redeemed for cash.

There's a commercial incentive running through the entire arrangement. Consumers want their deposits back - retailers participate in the return infrastructure - material processors receive valuable, relatively uncontaminated feedstock and the system administrator coordinates the money, information, logistics and materials. It's a practical example of how environmental objectives and commercial interests can work in harmony with one another.

There Are Qualifications

As impressive as the Lithuanian figures are, there's an important distinction between a container being returned for recycling and confirmation that every gram of that material has actually been recycled into another product. Return rates are not the same measurement as final recycling rates. Processing losses still exist, contamination, rejected material and the efficiency of downstream recycling operations all influence the eventual outcome.

Nor does a 90% return rate mean that the remaining 10% has necessarily been littered. Some containers may still enter other waste or recycling collections; and a deposit system isn't free to operate. Machines require investment, space and maintenance. Containers must be collected and transported - sorting and counting facilities need staff, equipment and energy. Retailers have responsibilities and somebody has to pay the operating costs. These aren't arguments against deposit systems; simply reminders that successful recycling requires considerably more than putting a machine outside a Sainsbury's.

What About Britain?

Our Deposit Return Scheme is scheduled to launch on 1 October 2027, introducing a refundable 20p deposit on eligible single use PET plastic bottles and aluminium and steel drinks cans between 150ml and 3 litres. Wales is taking a slightly different approach by including glass in its scheme, although glass containers will initially carry a zero-pence deposit during a four-year transition period. The scheme administrator, Exchange for Change, has appointed five major recycling and waste management operators to provide logistics and processing services across the country, with new collection vehicles and processing infrastructure planned, but the real test will come when the system becomes operational.

• Will return points be convenient?
• Will the machines be reliable?
• Will retailers have sufficient space?
• Will the collection logistics work efficiently across cities, towns and rural communities?
• What happens to existing kerbside and commercial recycling services when millions of valuable PET bottles and aluminium cans are diverted into a completely separate collection network?

Having worked in waste management for more than four decades, I've learned that there's a substantial difference between a scheme that looks excellent on paper and one that works efficiently on a wet Tuesday morning in November and Lithuania's achievements demonstrate what's possible.

Two Countries, Two Different Approaches

What interests me most is the contrast between Brazil and Lithuania. Brazil has developed an exceptionally effective aluminium can recycling system, supported by the inherent commercial value of aluminium and the people and businesses who collect it. Lithuania has used a modest refundable deposit, retailer participation and coordinated infrastructure to encourage consumers to return their drinks containers. The collection models are different, as are the social and economic circumstances but both demonstrate something fundamental. Recycling performance improves when the people handling the material have a practical reason to recover it and an accessible system for doing so. We can produce all the environmental slogans, targets and sustainability reports we like but ultimately the results depend on what happens to the packaging after the consumer has finished with it. Lithuania has shown that ten cents, backed by a properly organised collection system, can make an enormous difference.

The United Kingdom is preparing to find out what twenty pence can achieve. I shall be watching with considerable interest and knowing the waste industry as I do, I suspect the first twelve months will provide more than enough material for several more articles. More like this (Lithuania) - link - more like this (Brazil) - link - more like this (DRS) - link

(GUF) BRAZIL - LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Image inspiration - the thoroughly brilliant Tarsila do Amaral - link

In 2024 Brazil reported a 97.3% recycling rate for aluminium beverage cans, with 417,700 tonnes recovered. Recicla Latas, the organisation managing the sector’s reverse logistics system puts that at approximately 33.9 billion cans. The rate is also recorded on Brazil’s government waste information platform, SINIR.

For clarity, that figure relates specifically to aluminium drinks cans, rather than all Brazilian waste but within that category, it's an extraordinary achievement and it wasn't an isolated good year. According to Recicla Latas, 2024 marked sixteen consecutive years with rates above 96%. That kind of consistency takes a functioning chain of collection, trading, processing and manufacturing.

An empty can does not make its own way to a furnace. Someone has to collect it and that brings us to the catadores and catadoras; the workers who collect and sort recyclable materials, helping return resources to productive use.

Their work requires knowledge of materials, practical judgement and considerable effort. Through cooperatives, many also organise the selling of recovered materials, share income and make decisions together. As WIEGO, the international network supporting workers in informal employment, describes, these organisations give workers a collective voice as well as a practical way to earn a living.

Belo Horizonte offers a particularly interesting example of how that contribution can be recognised. The International Labour Organization documents the city’s inclusion of ASMARE, an association of recyclable material collectors, in its municipal recycling scheme from 1993. It also describes the development of Redesol, a cooperative network established in 2010 to help workers sell materials collectively, strengthen their bargaining position and improve their businesses.

There's a useful lesson here for anyone discussing a circular economy; the people doing the collecting and sorting need a proper place in the system - and recognition has also translated into further progress. In September 2025, WIEGO reported that negotiations involving Brazil’s National Movement of Waste Pickers had helped bring cooperatives into producer responsibility and reverse logistics arrangements, resulting in payments reaching more than 5,000 workers across approximately 300 cooperatives.

Selling recovered material has value; so does providing the service that makes its recovery possible. Celebrating these achievements should go hand in hand with supporting fair payment, safe working conditions and investment in equipment. Admiring hard work ought to mean wanting that work properly rewarded.

For me, Brazil’s story brings recycling back to something very practical. Materials need somewhere to go, businesses need reliable supplies, and the people connecting the two deserve respect.

PET Recycling

Brazil's achievements extend beyond aluminium. According to the Brazilian PET industry association, ABIPET, Brazil recycled 410,000 tonnes of post consumer PET packaging in 2024, representing 53% of PET packaging discarded by consumers. Of the recycled PET, 37% went into bottle preforms or bottles, while other uses included textiles, sheet materials and strapping.

The connection to the people behind the process continues here too; cooperatives directly supplied 33% of the recycling feedstock reported in ABIPET’s survey. Their contribution reaches well beyond collecting cans, they're also helping keep valuable plastics in productive use. Another Brazilian achievement worth recognising and another reason to give the people doing the work their share of the credit.

To my Brazilian readers: your country has an aluminium can recycling achievement worth sharing and a cooperative movement worth learning from and to the catadores and catadoras whose work helps make it happen: obrigado pelo trabalho de vocês—thank you for the work you do. More like this (Brazil) - link - more like this (cans) - link - more like this (PET) - link

(GUF) ONE MILLION PAGEVIEWS - THANK YOU

Image inspiration - Leonora Carrington - link - more like this - link - more like this - link

(GUF) SMALLEST PACKAGE - BIGGEST PROBLEM

Image inspiration - René Magritte - link

We spend an extraordinary amount of time discussing plastic bottles, carrier bags, straws and food containers; all feature prominently in recycling campaigns, environmental legislation and the endless debate over single use plastics.

One of the most troublesome forms of plastic packaging however receives comparatively little attention. The plastic sachet. That tiny packet of shampoo, instant coffee, detergent, sauce or food seasoning might appear relatively harmless. It weighs next to nothing, costs very little to manufacture and allows consumers to purchase everyday products in small, affordable quantities. Unfortunately, the very characteristics that make sachets commercially attractive also make them an absolute nightmare for the waste management industry and we've managed to manufacture billions upon billions of them.

A packaging format with nowhere to go

The sachet's problem begins with the materials. Many are not made from one straightforward, recyclable polymer but instead, manufacturers combine polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, aluminium foil and other barrier materials into thin, laminated structures. From a recycling perspective, it's a disaster. These layers are bonded together, making separation commercially impractical using conventional recycling technology. Even sachets manufactured entirely from one polymer can present problems because they're so small, lightweight and are frequently contaminated with the product they once contained.

At a Materials Recovery Facility such small flexible items are difficult to identify, separate and recover reliably. They can be lost among the screening residues or rejected during subsequent sorting and even when they're recovered, the next question is whether anybody actually wants to buy them.

How big is the problem?

A 2019 investigation by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), based on waste assessments across several communities, estimated that the Philippines was using more than 163 million plastic sachets every day (almost 60 billion a year).

In February 2026, a separate investigation by Break Free From Plastic and GAIA examined almost 300,000 pieces of plastic waste collected across eight Nigerian cities. Sachets were the most common type of plastic waste identified, ahead of bottles, bags and wrappers. These are not simply isolated examples of careless littering. They illustrate the consequences of introducing enormous quantities of low value disposable packaging into markets where collection and recovery infrastructure cannot possibly keep pace. The results are depressingly predictable.

Discarded sachets accumulate along roadsides, in waterways, on beaches and in drainage systems. Where regular waste collection is absent or inadequate, they may be dumped or openly burned. The material might have served its original purpose for a matter of seconds, then the resulting waste remains in the environment for decades, progressively fragmenting into smaller and smaller particles.

Who's responsible?

Between October 2023 and February 2024, environmental organisations working with Break Free From Plastic undertook a dedicated sachet brand audit across India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. 807 volunteers examined 33,467 discarded sachets from 2,678 brands. The companies most frequently identified included: Unilever: 1,851 sachets; Wings (Indonesian equivalent of Unilever or Procter & Gamble): 1,565 sachets; Mayora Indah (Mayora concentrates on food, confectionery, snacks, coffee and powdered beverages): 1,548 sachets; Procter & Gamble: 1,194 sachets; Nestlé: 1,171 sachets. Other prominent names included Wadia Group, Balaji Wafers, Yes2HealthyLife, JG Summit Holdings and Salim Group.

These figures are counts from the surveyed locations, not estimates of the companies' worldwide sachet production. Nevertheless, they're valuable evidence of which manufacturers' packaging is turning up as litter. Around 86% of the discarded sachets examined contained food products, demonstrating that the issue extends well beyond shampoos and detergents.

Unilever deserves particular attention because of the astonishing scale of its sachet business. A 2023 Greenpeace investigation estimated that the company was on course to sell approximately 53 billion plastic sachets that year ~ around 1,700 every second. Unilever has acknowledged the difficulties associated with flexible packaging and invested in collection programmes, redesigned materials and alternative delivery models. Its 2025 sustainability reporting also records reductions in virgin plastic use but the company's own figures show that only 15% of its flexible plastic packaging was reusable, recyclable or compostable in 2025, under its reporting methodology - i.e. there remains an enormous difference between recognising a problem and eliminating it.

Which countries are taking action?

Governments are beginning to respond, although the legislation is considerably less comprehensive than the headlines sometimes suggest.

Sri Lanka introduced restrictions in March 2021 prohibiting plastic and polythene sachets containing 20ml or 20g or less, with exemptions for food and medicines. An important intervention, although its limited scope left manufacturers opportunities to continue selling other sachet formats.

India prohibits plastic sachets for storing, packaging or selling gutkha, tobacco and pan masala under its Plastic Waste Management Rules. This is a specific product restriction rather than a general sachet ban.

Rwanda introduced broad restrictions on single-use plastic products under legislation enacted in 2019, building upon its earlier restrictions on plastic bags. Limited authorisations remain possible where suitable alternatives are unavailable.

The European Union is taking a different approach. Under its Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, from January 2030 certain single-serving condiment and sauce packaging will be prohibited in hotels, restaurants and catering establishments. Miniature disposable toiletries in accommodation are also targeted. There are exemptions, including for takeaway meals and certain medical care settings.

The Philippines, despite its substantial sachet pollution problem, has introduced Extended Producer Responsibility legislation that specifically includes sachets and other flexible plastic packaging. This places recovery obligations on qualifying businesses, but is not a nationwide prohibition on sachets.

In Nigeria, Lagos State's 2025 restrictions on certain single use plastics explicitly exempted drinking water sachets — despite the considerable problems associated with their disposal. The direction of travel is encouraging, but there's still an enormous gap between the scale of sachet production and the scope of existing restrictions.

What about Britain?

We have our own relationship with unnecessarily complicated packaging. Sauce sachets, coffee portions, sample products and single use cosmetics are familiar examples, particularly in hospitality and catering.

England's Simpler Recycling programme was originally intended to introduce mandatory household and workplace collections of flexible plastic packaging in 2027 but no surprise, in July 2026, the Government postponed that requirement until April 2030 and even when and if these collections do begin, an important distinction remains. Collecting flexible plastic is not the same thing as being able to recycle every form of flexible plastic.

Mono-material films with viable reprocessing markets are one thing. Tiny, heavily printed, contaminated, multilayer sachets are quite another.

There is another way

It would be easy to blame consumers, particularly in developing economies for purchasing products in small quantities but that would also be spectacularly unfair. Millions of families simply cannot afford to purchase larger quantities of everyday essentials. Small portions make products financially accessible, even if the unit price is sometimes higher.

In the Philippines, the traditional practice of tingi allowed consumers to purchase small quantities using their own containers - a principle that is being revived. The Kuha sa Tingi project, developed with Greenpeace Philippines and local authorities, has introduced refill facilities into neighbourhood shops where, rather than buying a new disposable sachet every time, customers can purchase the quantity they require using reusable containers.
The initial pilots in Quezon City and San Juan City reportedly prevented more than 50,000 sachets from entering the waste stream. Participating retailers also reported improved profitability.

It's a relatively modest achievement compared with billions of sachets produced annually, but it demonstrates that alternative commercial models can work; they just need investment, infrastructure and manufacturers prepared to support them.

The question manufacturers need to answer

Manufacturers have developed remarkable combinations of materials capable of keeping products fresh, extending shelf life, reducing packaging weight and lowering distribution costs, but too often it appears that the fundamental question of what happens to the packaging after use has been left until late in the design process, if at all and plastic sachets are an almost perfect illustration.

If a manufacturer can engineer five different materials into one tiny disposable packet, surely it can devote some of that ingenuity to designing a better way of delivering the product.

The waste industry cannot keep being expected to solve problems that have been deliberately designed into packaging long before it ever reaches a recycling bin and perhaps that's the real scandal of the plastic sachet - designed for convenience, optimised for distribution and perfected for profit - everything, it seems, except what happens post consumer. More like this (sachets) - link - more like this (Philippines) - link - more like this (Lagos) - link