Recycling Tracker survey in Wales: Spring 2025

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

Fieldwork was undertaken online, from 13 March – 31 March 2025. A total of 1,001 adults Wales were interviewed who have responsibility for dealing with the rubbish and recycling in the home. The sample set quotas on age, gender, region, social class, and ethnicity to closely represent the nation’s population.

Key findings

• Social norms: 22% of citizens in Wales perceive a strong social norm for dry recycling, with an average score of 7.9 out of 10. Social norms in Wales are stronger than the UK overall, particularly where people recall campaigns (e.g., Be Mighty).
• Persistent issues remain around with accuracy, feelings of worthwhileness, confidence, and knowledge.
• However, recycling participation is high: Wales leads the way in recycling participation in the UK – 94% of Welsh citizens report that they regularly recycle at home.
• Worthwhileness: 76% of citizens in Wales agree with the statement “I feel my recycling efforts are worthwhile”.
• Contamination: 85% of households in Wales place at least one non-accepted item into the recycling bins. The number of items classed as contamination is above the UK average and concentrated in a short list of ‘tricky’ materials such as foil/foil pouches, aerosols, flexible film, some food/drink cartons and small electricals/toiletries.
• Missed capture: 77% of households in Wales miss at least one item from the recycling (when including glass perfume/aftershave bottles). On average, households in Wales miss 2.0 items per recycling collection.
• Confidence: Only 15% of citizens in Wales feel “very confident” in what can and can’t be recycled; 63% report being “mostly confident”. Confusion persists around items like soft plastics, foil pouches, and mixed-material packaging.
• Food waste recycling: 80% of citizens in Wales have access and use a food waste recycling service. However, 16% have a service but do not use it and 5% claim they do not have a service.
• Reuse and refill appetite: Two in five (40%) of citizens in Wales are open to adopting refill habits. The biggest motivators are around saving money or earn financial based rewards. Key barriers reported are cost, convenience and hygiene concerns but also availability.
• Recycling at work: Three in four (71%) of Welsh citizens recall seeing recycling facilities and 86% report they recycle often at their workplace.
• Recycling on the go: 68% of Welsh citizens report having seen recycling facilities in town and city centres. However, the highest rates of frequent recycling on the go occurred amongst students at university or college where two in five (40%) report using them “very often”.

Recommendations

Welsh Government

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 to boost social norms and feelings of perceived worthwhileness of recycling. Welsh Government can tailor these campaigns building on insights from existing research and the success of “Wales Recycles” and “Be Mighty” to create a national message for recycling in Wales.

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 should build on the existing insights from the Tracker and the work of “Be Mighty” to identify and successfully target key issues and population groups. Local authorities can contact WRAP’s Collaborative Change Programme for support to produce clear, behavioural science led communications to drive increased uptake and accuracy of recycling.

Producers and businesses

Producers should look to reduce and 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 Wales website

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