Almost half of supermarket packaging isn’t easily recyclable, Which? finds

Only 52% of supermarket packaging can be easily recycled according to our latest recycling investigation.

Which dissected packaging from a range of popular supermarket own-brand groceries and added up how many individual pieces of packaging could be easily recycled.

Depending on the supermarket, between 38.67% and 58.6% of the pieces of packaging we looked at were easy to recycle. Morrisons had the lowest number of easily recyclable elements, while Tesco and Waitrose had the most, although all supermarkets had room for improvement.

We also found that the quality of recycling labelling was very mixed – on average, 42% of packaging was incorrectly labelled or not labelled at all.

Best and worst supermarkets for plastic packaging

We ordered a basket of up to 46 popular own-brand groceries from the UK’s 11 supermarkets (online where possible; in store where there was no online option). We unwrapped them, took apart the packaging and analysed how recyclable each piece of packaging was.

We sorted each supermarket’s packaging into the following categories:

• Easily recyclable in kerbside collections – this includes glass, clean cardboard, tins and certain types of plastic, such as plastic bottles and plastic punnets
• Recyclable at collection points – this includes things such as drinks cartons and plastic bags
• Hard to recycle – items that need to be given special treatment to recycle or must be disposed of in general waste, such as plastic films, cardboard that is soiled with grease and non-stretchy plastic such as crisp packets.

Good and bad packaging practice

Our investigation found some big differences in how supermarkets packaged the same type of food item. Some supermarkets packaged bananas in plastic bags – which we think is unnecessary – while others sold them loose.

And many used plastic netting to package easy-peeler oranges, while others sold them in easily-recyclable cardboard boxes.

Here’s how the packaging piled up after we’d taken the food out of its packaging for the supermarkets with the most and least easily recyclable items.

Move the slider to the right to see the groceries in packaging, and to the left to see the packaging after we unwrapped it.

Tesco – joint-most recyclable content

Morrisons (below) uses more non-recyclable packaging than both Waitrose and Tesco (pictured above). Unlike most other supermarkets, Morrisons had significantly more items of packaging that couldn’t be easily recycled than those that could be easily recycled.

The Tesco and Waitrose shops included unpackaged fruit and a higher quantity of recyclable packaging. For example, the Waitrose shop included a cake packaged entirely in cardboard and recyclable plastic.

We found that it was not possible to buy fruit and vegetables from Morrisons online without plastic packaging. We found the same to be true of some other supermarkets, including Iceland.