Common Recycling Misconceptions

Whenever we conduct waste audits or spot checks of bins at one of the universities, we always tend to come across the same items commonly placed in the wrong waste stream. A lot of the time it is quite understandable where the misconception has come from and why people consistently get it wrong.

To try and help where we can, this blog post aims to dispel some of the key myths and better educate you on recycling best practice! 

Composite materials

Typically, the items we see disposed of incorrectly the most are composite materials, these are materials made from two or more constituent materials. This includes items like disposable coffee cups, crisp packets, chocolate bar wrappers and sandwich packaging. 

These items should be disposed of as general waste but as many people do not realise they are composites they think they are doing the right thing by putting these items into a recycling bin. For example, sandwich packaging is made up of a layer of cardboard on the outside, and a layer of plastic on the inside that are bonded together and can only be separated by specialist machinery. As the materials cannot be separated at regular sorting facilities in the UK neither the cardboard or plastic can be properly recycled, and the packaging is classified as general waste. 

Black/dark coloured plastics

Although black plastic is recyclable in theory, it cannot be recognised by the optical infrared sorting machinery currently used in the UK. As a result, this means many items including ready meal trays, biscuit trays and meat packaging will end up in general waste by default. Therefore, we encourage you to avoid black plastic where possible and lobby your favourite companies to use detectable colourants!

Biodegradable/compostable materials 

After Blue Planet II, many different companies strived to make materials that will break down quicker and avoid the terrible scenes of marine life trapped in litter. Many people will see these new materials and their sustainable branding and assume they can therefore be recycled or placed in with food waste.

However, the conditions under which these new materials need to be in, in order to biodegrade are very specific, very high temperatures. These conditions only occur in specialist industrial composting facilities and not in everyday situations if they are dropped on the ground/in the ocean and so they do not solve this issue. Biodegradable/compostable plastics also take much longer to break down than normal food and green waste in these industrial facilities and so are not part of the acceptance criteria for many compost facilities or anaerobic digestion facilities which is where much of the UK’s food waste is currently taken.