Recycling Tracker survey in the UK: Spring 2025

This year, WRAP’s Recycling Tracker celebrates 21 years of tracking the attitudes, knowledge and behaviour of citizens in the UK. It is the largest survey of its kind, highlighting the critical issues we must tackle to make real progress.

The Recycling Tracker provides a fresh look at citizens’ attitudes and behaviours when it comes to recycling.

Fieldwork was undertaken online, from 13 – 31 March 2025. A total of 5,438 adults across the UK were interviewed who have responsibility for dealing with the rubbish and recycling in the home. The sample set quotas on age, gender and region to closely represent the nation’s population 

Key findings

• Recycling remains an established and normalised behaviour in the UK:  Almost nine in ten (89%) UK citizens reporting that they regularly recycle at least most things that can be recycled.
• But there are still high rates of missed capture:  Over three in four (79%) of UK citizens report disposing of recyclable materials in general rubbish. On average, each household misses 2.5 recyclables.
• Contamination is high: 81% of citizens are putting non-recyclable items in recycling bins. Contamination remains a persistent issue, especially for items like drinking glasses and food & drink foil pouches.
• Social norms have declined: Just over one in five (22%) UK citizens perceive a very positive norm for dry recycling in their area – the average dry recycling norm score is 7.1(vs. 7.7 in 2019). Those who believe their recycling efforts are very worthwhile are more likely to perceive a higher recycling social norm than the UK average.
• Low confidence levels: Less than one in ten (9%) UK citizens feel "very confident" about what can and cannot be recycled, with the majority (58%) only "mostly confident”. This lack of knowledge leads to high levels of missed capture and contamination.
• Worthwhileness and recycling: Four in five (81%) UK citizens who believe their recycling efforts are very worthwhile state they recycle everything. In comparison, just over one third (35%) of UK citizens who view their recycling efforts as fairly or not worthwhile are significantly more likely to state they only recycle most but not all items.
• Low council communication reach: Slightly less than two in five (37%) received information from their council this year and the past year on what can and cannot be recycled. Those who did receive recent communication, report higher confidence in their recycling efforts and perceive recycling as more worthwhile.
• Impact of campaigns: 76% of citizens who have seen ‘Britain Recycles’ assets agree that their own recycling efforts are worthwhile, compared to 69% of UK citizens on average.
• Food waste recycling:  42% of citizens in the UK have access to and use a food waste recycling service. 7% of citizens have access but have never used, and 9% of citizens have previously used it but have since stopped (lapsed users).
• Public appetite for reuse and refill is strong: Around nine in ten (87–89%) of respondents say they could be motivated to use in-store or online reuse models for beverage, personal-care and food/drink glass containers.
• Recycling at work: Four in five (81%) UK citizens have not heard or seen anything about the new legislative changes aimed at enhancing workplace recycling across all sectors.
• Recycling on the go: Shopping malls and town/city centre had the lowest rates of frequent use of recycling facilities, with just one in five (20%) UK citizens reporting they recycled using these facilities “very often”.

Recommendations

DEFRA

The 2025 recycling tracker finds ongoing evidence that there is a strong need for an effective national waste campaign alongside incoming policies such as Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility and Simpler Recycling to boost social norms and feelings of perceived worthwhileness of recycling.

Local authorities

Local authorities can utilise incoming revenue from pEPR to address issues on a local scale and provide clear and direct guidelines to support citizens on what can/cannot be recycled. Local authorities can utilise communications guidance and support from WRAP to design clear, behavioural science led communications to drive increased uptake and accuracy of recycling. WRAP has also produced the Good Practice Guidance on Waste and Recycling Collections to support the delivery of consistent, high-quality services and help to enable greater participation and public satisfaction in recycling.

Producers and businesses

Producers should look to simplify packaging and align with pEPR recommendations. Designing for recycling will reduce the barriers of separating materials for citizens. Producers should align with best practice guidelines for labelling which integrate behavioural nudges into on-pack messages, as well as using clear, direct labels such as OPRL - which were found to correlate with reduced levels of contamination.

For more information on workplace recycling, please visit WRAP’s Business of Recycling England website

For dedicated support for the Hospitality and Food Sector, businesses can visit the Guardians of Grub website