Greater consistency in household recycling in England: A framework

The vision

By 2025 packaging is designed to be recyclable, where practical and environmentally beneficial, and is labelled clearly to indicate whether it can be recycled or not. Every household in England can recycle a common set of dry recyclable materials and food waste, collected in one of three different ways.

Benefits of greater consistency

Recycling has become an everyday activity for many households but we now need to build on this progress and make it easier for households to recycle more.

By making it more effective for councils and others to provide services, and improve the quantity and quality of materials, we can work together to bring about a step change in recycling rates and fully realise the value of recycled materials.

Greater consistency can contribute to this and bring a number of key benefits nationally. The benefits are calculated over an eight-year period 2018 to 2025 and are cumulative.

How can local authorities work towards consistency?

Local authorities have made great progress in recycling in recent years. However services and performance vary across England. Through the delivery of greater consistency in recycling, there are opportunities to realise further significant benefits.

How could my local authority potentially benefit?

• Achieving increased recycling
• Reducing contamination
• Building partnerships
• Building a better recycling community
• Benefitting financially

How can my authority get involved?

• Consult our collections guidance, tools and support to help you improve recycling collections
• New recycling guidelines have been developed with local authorities, waste management companies and reprocessors to tackle the continued confusion in UK households around what items can and cannot be recycled. 
• Find all the latest Recycle Now communications materials. All Recycle Now materials are rigorously consumer tested so you can be sure they are the best available.