packaging & waste statistics

What does the average dustbin contain?

Please take a look at the picture of the dustbin that shows the breakdown of the sort of rubbish that goes into the average family's dustbin. When you see plastic packaging it appears to be large items, but this is because they are usually preformed into a specific shape.

The vast majority of these materials can be recycled easily in the UK at recycling sites or through kerbside collections, check out the bank locator for more details.

How much packaging waste is created each year in the UK?

Around 30 million tonnes of household waste is generated in the UK every year, of which 5.9 million tonnes is packaging. The chart below shows that packaging makes up less than 3% of all waste from UK households, commerce and industry combined that goes to landfill. Over half of packaging waste is recycled or composted.

For facts about packaging please click here to visit our factsheets.

How much food waste is created each year in the UK?

In the UK, an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of household food waste is produced, which is greater than the 5.9 million tonnes of packaging waste produced in the UK.

According to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign "wasting food costs the average family £420 a year". "If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road."