Soft plastics: how to recycle film and flexible plastic

Soft plastics are one of the most confusing categories in recycling. They're everywhere in a typical kitchen, they're usually marked with recycling symbols, and yet most councils specifically tell you not to put them in your bin. Here's why — and what to do instead.

What are soft plastics?

Soft or flexible plastic is any plastic film or wrapping that can be easily scrunched or stretched. You'll find it throughout a typical kitchen and supermarket shop. Common examples include:

• Carrier bags and produce bags (including thin ones from the supermarket)
• Bread bags and the twist-ties or clips that seal them
• Crisp and snack packets
• Frozen food bags
• Pasta, rice and cereal inner bags
• Plastic film lids on ready meals and trays
• Bubble wrap and air pillows used in postal packaging
• Cling film and stretch wrap
• Toilet roll and kitchen roll outer wrapping
• Multipack shrink wrapping (holding together cans or bottles)
• Ziploc-style reusable bags when they're finally worn out

A quick test: if you can scrunch the plastic into a ball in your fist without it cracking or keeping its shape, it's likely a soft plastic.

Why they can't go in kerbside recycling

Kerbside recycling systems — the bins collected from your home — are generally designed to handle rigid materials: hard plastic bottles and tubs, glass, metal tins and paper. Soft, flexible plastic film behaves very differently on the sorting line:

• It tangles machinery. Film wraps around conveyor belts, rollers and sorting equipment, causing jams, breakdowns and, in the worst cases, serious injuries to workers who have to manually free it. This is the primary reason councils and recycling centres exclude it.
• It contaminates other materials. Film mixed in with paper or rigid plastic makes sorting less accurate, reducing the quality of the output material.
• It's lightweight and hard to separate. Optical sorting equipment at materials recovery facilities works best on heavier, more rigid items. Light film tends to go to the wrong stream.

When soft plastics accidentally go in the kerbside bin, they can end up being rejected from recycling and sent to landfill or incineration anyway — but only after causing problems at the sorting facility.

Reduce first

Recycling is better than landfill, but reducing how much soft plastic you bring home is better than recycling it. A few practical habits make a real difference:

• Choose loose produce. Buying fruit and vegetables loose (without the plastic tray and film) is usually cheaper per item and avoids a lot of soft plastic. See our guide to reducing plastic use for more strategies.
• Use refill options where available. Some shops offer refill stations for dry goods like pasta, rice and cereals, which cuts the bag packaging entirely.
• Carry reusable bags. A reusable bag means you rarely need a carrier bag, and a couple of lightweight produce bags in your pocket means you don't need the thin plastic ones for fruit and veg.
• Buy in larger packs. When you do buy packaged food, a larger pack often means less packaging relative to the amount of food inside.
• Choose alternative packaging. Some products are available in glass, cardboard or rigid plastic — all more likely to be recyclable kerbside.

Where soft plastics can go

When you do have soft plastics that need disposing of, there are collection options in many areas — though availability varies significantly by country, region and even individual town.

• Supermarket and retailer collection points. Many larger supermarkets and grocery chains have a soft-plastic collection point near the entrance or at the checkouts. Some accept only carrier bags; others take a wide range of soft plastics. Look for signage or check the retailer's website for their specific list. Collected material is sent to specialist facilities that can process film plastic — a different type of operation from a standard kerbside recycling facility.
• Dedicated plastic-film collection points. Some areas have standalone collection points for plastic film, often at council recycling centres or community facilities. Check your local council website.
• Council household waste recycling centres. Some HWRC/tip sites have a container specifically for plastic bags and film. Not all do — check before making a trip.
• Postal recycling schemes. For specific types of packaging (such as crisp packets from particular brands), some schemes offer freepost returns — though the reach of these is limited.

If none of these options are available locally, the honest answer is that the soft plastic will need to go in the general waste bin. In that situation, reducing your use of it is the more powerful action.

How to prepare soft plastics for recycling

Collection points that accept soft plastics require them to be clean and dry. Food residue left in bags can contaminate a whole bale of material, making it unrecyclable. Preparation is simple:

• Empty them completely. Shake out any crumbs or remaining food.
• Give them a quick rinse if there's food residue inside — a bread bag that held a fresh loaf, for example, is usually fine as-is, but a bag that held raw meat or wet food should be rinsed.
• Let them dry before putting them in your collection bag at home. Damp plastic can cause mould in a stored pile.
• Keep them together. Many people accumulate a few weeks' worth in a carrier bag before taking them to a drop-off point.

You don't need to remove every label or sticker, and bags don't need to be spotless — just empty and dry.

What's not accepted in soft-plastic recycling

Even at collection points that take a wide range of soft plastics, some items are excluded:

• Compostable and biodegradable bags. These are a common source of confusion. Bags labelled "compostable" or "biodegradable" look and feel like regular plastic film but are made from different materials. They contaminate the soft-plastic recycling stream and should not be included. They need to go to industrial composting facilities — home compost heaps usually don't get hot enough to break them down properly. Check your local options.
• Very dirty or food-contaminated film that can't be cleaned — if it's soaked with sauce or grease, it's general waste.
• Non-plastic films such as foil pouches (stand-up coffee pouches, for example, are often a mix of plastic and foil layers) — check the specific instructions for your collection point.
• Black plastic film — some collection points exclude it as it can interfere with optical sorting at subsequent facilities.

The bigger picture

It's worth being clear-eyed about the limits of soft-plastic recycling. Even where collection infrastructure exists, the processes for recycling film plastic are less mature and less efficient than those for, say, aluminium cans or glass bottles. The recycled material from soft plastics is often downcycled into products like decking or bin liners rather than back into food packaging. The quality and quantity of recycling routes varies considerably.

This doesn't mean recycling soft plastics is pointless — it's meaningfully better than landfill or incineration. But it does mean that reducing the amount of soft plastic you use in the first place is the more powerful action. A reusable bag used hundreds of times, or buying loose produce, avoids the problem altogether rather than solving it at the back end.

Your soft-plastic checklist

• Never put soft plastics in your kerbside recycling bin — they tangle machinery.
• Use the scrunch test: if it scrunches into a ball without cracking, it's likely soft plastic.
• Check your nearest supermarket for a soft-plastic collection point.
• Make sure items are empty, clean and dry before recycling them.
• Keep compostable bags separate — they contaminate soft-plastic recycling.
• Reduce at source: choose loose produce, reusable bags and refill options where available.
• Check your local council website for soft-plastic drop-off options near you.