UK’s recycling ‘struggling to cope’ after online shopping increases in lockdown
Britain is "struggling to cope" with a lockdown boom of recycling due to online deliveries.
A third of adults say they are recycling more now than ever according to a study of 2,000, with almost two-thirds putting it down to being at home all the time.
Almost half blamed their overflowing bins on handling extra packaging from online deliveries, but other factors given were people getting through hand soap and toilet roll like never before.
According to recycling and packaging company DS Smith, which commissioned the research, the UK’s recycling infrastructure is simply not equipped to deal with so much waste.
Rogier Gerritsen, managing director of recycling at DS Smith, said: “Even before the pandemic, we were making the switch to online shopping and working from home more, but restrictions due to Covid-19 have revolutionised these trends.
“With many of these changes looking set to stay, including our new recycling habits, we need to ensure that our collections infrastructure enables us to recycle as much material as possible from our domestic streams.”
The study also revealed that the scale of online shopping will not dip even after lockdown is over, as 83% plan buy online at the same level or more post lockdown.
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It also emerged 70% of those surveyed via OnePoll said they urgently need more information about what can and cannot be recycled.
And 49% of adults want to try to use more cardboard or paper-based packaging rather than plastic-based packaging because it is more easily recycled.
The findings come after research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development revealed employers expect the number of staff working from home in the future to double in comparison to pre-pandemic levels – further highlighting the need for change.
Rogier Gerritsen, from DS Smith, added: “As part of plans to build back better, we need to work together to build a consistent recycling infrastructure that has separate collections at the very heart of it – specifically separate collections for paper and cardboard.
"This would help accelerate the UK closer to its recycling aspirations.
“Consistency around recycling collections would also make it easier to improve recycling labelling, paving the way for a system where all packaging and collection infrastructures would have standardised recycling labels that sufficiently informs the consumer about what materials can be recycled where.”
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