A version of this article was published by inews, October 15, 2024.

Putting out the recycling bin is not my favourite household chore. But it’s one I always used to try to do, because I could argue I didn’t have to sort and wash the recycling beforehand. It’s not that the washing takes long – it just triggers a particular sort of laziness in me. What’s the point of making something clean that is going to be crushed, shredded, or melted? 

It’s only been relatively recently that I learnt all this was unnecessary. Ideally, the items in our recycling bin would be spick and span but it really doesn’t matter if they are not very clean: the recycling process can handle dirty items.

The most important thing about recycling, in fact, is that people do it. Introducing recycling bins with kerbside collection was key to increasing rates of recycling in the UK.

Unfortunately, despite targets to increase recycling, rates have been stalling and even decreasing in England. One reason for this could be that people think that in the absence of washing out that jam jar, you shouldn’t put it in the green bin.

Indeed, this lack of effective communication about what to do with recycling is one of several barriers to increasing recycling rates. Recycling typically increases with age and after a certain point, income.

One way to think about this, is that if you have limited funds and limited time (working more than one job and with a young family for example), recycling will not be as much of a priority as if you are, say, a retired person who has much more time on their hands.

There is also an important misunderstanding of what can be recycled. Many people do not realise that yoghurt pots and other plastics can be recycled, and so should not be put in the general waste bin.

Depending on where you live, food cartons such as Tetra packs could also be recycled.It’s important to reduce waste plastic partly because of the well-known issue of plastic pollution – and above all, the impact of carbon emissions.

Over the past few decades, the UK has shifted away from disposing of waste in landfill to burning it in incinerators – nowadays around half of all household waste is incinerated.

An important motivation for this was the methane landfill produces (a greenhouse gas). While burning waste releases carbon dioxide, the thought was that it has less of a climate impact while also generating heat and electricity.

But now, burning waste is the dirtiest form of electricity generation in the UK. Our failure to recycle is significantly contributing to climate change.

It’s worth noting that another reason for stalled recycling rates is wider scepticism about what happens to the stuff we recycle. There are numerous examples of clothing,electronic, and plastic recycling being effectively dumped in overseas countries. The mentality of “out of sight out of mind”, in a poorly-regulated industry, has caused environmental disasters. 

The solution to all this requires coordinated action by national and local government, along with waste and recycling companies. This could get recycling rates up from around 44 per cent to the 65 per cent target. Checking that recycling put into green bins makes it to a reprocessing plant – wherever it is in the world – would help ensure that items are actually recycled.

In the meantime, we must not let perfection be the enemy of the good. Participating in recycling shows government and industry that this is something we value as a society, while also diverting plastics from incinerators. If you care about waste and pollution – and you should – then you should care about recycling.