Organised by Everyday Plastic and Greenpeace to get some accurate data on just how much plastic we throw away. I’ve saved and counted our plastic waste for the week 11-17 March 2024 and previously for the week 16-22 May 2022.
Campaign web site: The Big Plastic Count
Results
| 2022 | 2024 | Food and Drink |
| 0 | 0 | Small bottles |
| 1 | 1 | Large bottles |
| 1 | 2 | Hard plastic caps and lids |
| 14 | 3 | Peelable film lids |
| 3 | 0 | Fruit and veg trays, pots and their hard lids |
| 8 | 4 | Fruit, veg and salad bags, wrappers, nets |
| 0 | 0 | Black pots, tubs, trays |
| 17 | 16 | Pots, tubs, trays |
| 28 | 53 | Snack bags, packets, wrappers |
| 0 | 2 | Other hard food and drink packaging |
| 30 | 46 | Other soft food and drink packaging |
| Cleaning and Toiletries | ||
| 3 | 0 | Small bottles |
| 0 | 0 | Large bottles |
| 0 | 0 | Pots, tubs, tubes |
| 0 | 1 | Squeezy tubes |
| 0 | 1 | Other hard cleaning and toiletries packaging |
| 0 | 1 | Other soft cleaning and toiletries packaging |
| Everything Else | ||
| 2 | 3 | Other hard plastic packaging |
| 10 | 4 | Other soft packaging |
2022 result for our family of four, two adults and two children.
2024 packaging.
The pictures show that the total amount of plastic packaging hasn’t changed over the two years. What has changed is that much of the soft plastic is now printed with the “Recycle with bags at large supermarkets” logo. So this is where the soft plastic now goes, rather than into the black rubbish sack. The food waste is typical of any given week, the cleaning and toiletries section is going to vary more week to week because many of the products last longer than a week before they are used up.
We have a single wheelie bin for dry mixed recyclables, as well as a green bin for food and garden waste. Only the plastic bottles and hard plastic trays and tubs are collected for potential recycling. Given that the single recycling bin also includes glass, paper, cartons and cans, presumably the plastic is difficult to separate out as a clean and uncontaminated waste stream for recycling. The remainder of the plastic will probably go to the Waterbeach landfill as part of the black bag waste. An incinerator was muted a few years ago but the public voted against it. Not included in the survey are the many paper and plastic composites; for these there is no collection system.