The introduction of the government’s Simpler Recycling scheme – which means households in England need to separate their waste into five bins – has sparked debate online, with many Brits expressing confusion and frustration about the changes.
According to the government website, the new rules aim to boost recycling and reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill or is incinerated, which all sounds like a good thing – right? However, some people aren’t so convinced.
A Homebuilding & Renovating poll revealed that just 10% of voters think the Simpler Recycling scheme is a “step in the right direction”, with 80% finding it “confusing” and the remaining 10% still undecided.
Article continues belowPraneel Sidhu from Hertfordshire is one of many people who feel negatively about the changes. He claims that councils “keep trying to do less and less while council tax goes up and the quality of the service goes down”.
He explains that it’s not that he doesn’t care about the environment, but that he feels his actions will have “zero impact” until governments and energy companies take action on the bigger picture.
Praneel adds: “I’m just going to do what’s convenient for me and put all my rubbish in the same bin. I’ve also heard from friends who work in recycling plants that all the recycling just ends up in the same place anyway.”
He’s not alone in this belief – a survey by David Wilson Homes found that one in six UK homeowners do not actively recycle (that’s more than 4.5 million households), while England as a whole recycles just 43.4% of the waste it produces.
It’s not just residents who have negative opinions about the new rules. Homebuilding & Renovating’s web editor, Amy Willis, explains that her local waste collectors are also apprehensive about how the changes will work.
She says, "The one thing they don't like about the new rule changes is the possibility of having to leave fines or refuse-to-collect notes on homeowners bins if they get it wrong. They worry about having to deal with angry homeowners if that happens."
After “years of confusion over what goes in which bin”, the government says the new rules will help make bin collections more streamlined and consistent. However, environmental activist and co-founder of A Plastic Planet, Sian Sutherland, isn’t convinced this is the answer to the plastic crisis.
"Simplifying recycling will make the system easier to navigate, and that may improve capture rates at the margins, but it doesn’t change the fundamental equation. Plastic production is expected to nearly triple by 2060, reaching around one billion tonnes a year under current trends.
"In that context, simply improving how we handle a growing volume of waste, not reducing it, while it continues to enter our environment and our bodies, feels fundamentally misaligned with the scale of the problem."
Her main concern is that the policy focuses on managing the waste rather than addressing the root problem – that too much of it exists in the first place.
Tara Button, founder of Buy Me Once, agrees. "Recycling has become a sort of moral comfort blanket. It lets us keep shopping the way we've been trained to, because we can tell ourselves the green bin will sort it out later. It very often won't. Much of what we put out for recycling is quietly incinerated, landfilled or shipped abroad, and manufacturers get a green halo to carry on churning out throwaway products they know will break."
An alternative solution?
So, if recycling supposedly isn’t the solution, what is? Tara Button says, "The waste hierarchy has been quietly flipped on its head. Reduce, reuse, recycle is meant to be in that order for a reason – recycling is the last resort, not the first.
"Real progress looks like fewer, better things: a frying pan you'll still be using in forty years, a kettle you can open up and repair, a coat that can be re-waxed rather than binned. The greenest product is almost always the one you already own, and after that, it's the one you'll still be using in a decade."
Whether you think the Simpler Recycling scheme is flawed or believe it’s up to governments and manufacturers to drive real change, Homebuilding & Renovating’s assistant editor, Sarah Harley, says we all have a part to play.
A government spokesperson says, “We’re making over £78 billion available to England’s councils this year, which includes funding for councils to roll out weekly food waste collections.
"Our Simpler Recycling reforms will end the postcode lottery of bin collection and help keep our streets cleaner, while empowering local authorities to continue to deliver services in the way that works best for their communities.”
If you're feeling confused about the new recycling rules, we have plenty of content to help you navigate these changes, including what you can and can't put in your garden recycling bin and why some councils haven't rolled out the changes yet.
