UK households throw out 1.7bn plastic items a week

UK households throw away 1.7 billion pieces of plastic packaging a week, a survey involving thousands of families, schools and even MPs suggests.

The “big plastic count”, conducted by Greenpeace UK and Everyday Plastic, involved almost 225,000 people from 77,000 households – including 28,000 pupils from more than 5,000 school classes.

It found they binned a total of nearly 4.64 million pieces – around 60 items per household.

If that is reflected across all UK households, it equates to 1.7 billion pieces of plastic packaging a week, and 90 billion pieces of waste a year.

The survey found snack packaging and veg packaging were the most commonly counted plastic items.

The count also estimated that more than half the plastic packaging pieces being thrown away (58 per cent) were incinerated – which campaigners warn adds to greenhouse gases and poses health risks to nearby communities – and just 17 per cent was recycled.

The campaign groups warned that the UK threw away more plastic per person than every other country except the US, and recycling would never be able to catch up with the amount of plastics being produced.

With 81 per cent of plastic in the survey counted consisting of food and drink packaging, likely coming from supermarkets, Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic are calling on stores and policymakers to embrace reuse and refill schemes

They also urge the Government to ban all plastic waste exports by 2027, implement the deposit return scheme and end approvals for new incinerators.