Recycling myths

Common myths about recycling

Recycling is not always straightforward and there are many common misconceptions. So, we’ve listed a few of them below to help highlight some of the dos and don’ts of recycling.

• Recycling doesn’t make any difference – Recycling significantly reduces how much energy is used to create materials. For example, it takes 95% less energy to create glass products from recycled material than making them from virgin materials. Furthermore, making plastics from recycled material uses 75% less energy. In the UK, recycling saves about 10-15 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year, the equivalent of taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
• Councils make money out of recycling – Some of the materials collected have a value and some have a cost to manage, but overall, recycling is a cost to the council. Another benefit though, is that recycling or composting waste is significantly cheaper than other methods of waste disposal
• Everything I recycle just ends up in landfill anyway – No, we go to great effort and expense to collect and produce good quality, separate recycling streams. Recycling is sent to reputable, legitimate recycling off takers who have been thoroughly checked and audited. The only materials that end up being disposed of are those items that we don’t ask for and cannot be recycled, for example bagged rubbish.
• Everything gets shipped abroad – The table shows the regions where materials are currently recycled. A lot of what we collect is recycled in the UK, but a portion is often recycled abroad. Some materials have very stable recycling markets here in the UK, for example, plastic and metal, while others regularly change. This is because the market for reprocessing recyclables is led by supply and demand, as well as the availability of reprocessing capacity on a global scale.
• Some items like paper can only be recycled a few times – Whilst paper recycling is limited due to the fibres within it breaking down quickly, they can still be put to good use in products such as egg cartons.
• Rinsing our recyclables is a waste of energy and water – Making sure bottles and other food and drinks packaging are completely empty and giving them a quick rinse before recycling is important because it stops other recyclables from being contaminated. Use your old washing up water or pop them into the dishwasher if there’s space.
• It doesn’t matter if I put the wrong things in my recycling – If you put the wrong things in your recycling, you risk contaminating the whole load. This might mean all the materials are sent for disposal instead of recycling or that the quality of the recycled materials produced are lower. If in doubt, leave it out!

Recycled materials and their destinations