Many supermakets now collect plastic bags, wrapping and films for recycling. You can use Recycle Now’s ‘Recycling Locator’ to check which supermarkets collect them.

If you can’t take them to be recycled, please place all soft plastic packaging in your general waste bin.

Examples of soft plastics include:

  • Film lids from fruit punnets, yoghurt pots etc.
  • Bread bags
  • Frozen food bags
  • Salad, pasta, and rice bags
  • Cheese, fish and meat wrapping
  • Crisps, sweet bags, biscuit and chocolate wrapping

There are currently flexible plastic household collection and recycling pilots taking place across the UK, involving local councils. The project will help to understand how to incorporate flexible plastics into existing collection services across different places and demographics and develop best practice ahead of the introduction of mandatory kerbside collection of flexible plastic recycling in 2027. Read more.