114. How Norway gets 98% of its bottles and cans back

James Piper 0:01

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast that we deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one-sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss DRS in Norway. Our other gloves, rubbish or not. I have a question about the lowest impact supermarket meal deal and how will yogurt be packaged in our dream shop. I'm James Piper and I'm joined by Robbie Stanford. My car from Rubbish Friend. Good morning, Robbie. Morning, James. How are you today?

Robbie Staniforth 0:29

Yeah, very well. Intrigued by some of those things that I've got no idea what's about to come up.

James Piper 0:34

So I told you not to read the supermarket meal deal one because I want your opinions. So that'll be a nice surprise. That was exactly what I wanted. And today, it's the first of October, as this episode goes out. Which means that tonight we are at this award ceremony. The podcast awards. British Podcast Awards. So just as a reminder, we're up for three awards education, lifestyle, and impact. And the best thing you can do to find out whether we've won or not is to follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast, where I will, whether we win or not, I will put it on social media.

Robbie Staniforth 1:10

Okay, so we're going for it. We've put it out there. It's Thursday morning. You're listening to this. Thursday night, we find out whether we go home empty-handed.

James Piper 1:20

Which we won't be too sad about because we've been shortlisted. Yes. It's very, very cool to be shortlisted. Very true. Very true. So we're really excited by that. We're gonna have a great evening, whatever happens. Can't wait. Trash talk. Elephant in the Room, we did promise last week that we would do packaging promotions gone wrong. Oh yes, I forgot we made the promise.

Robbie Staniforth 1:45

Yeah, okay.

James Piper 1:46

And then we decided that we were going to interview someone from Exchange for Change as our next interview, which will be next week. So we need a fourth DRS. Fourth DRS episode, yeah. And at the same time, you had someone text saying, Can you just do an episode of places where it's going right? Yeah where DRS is good.

Robbie Staniforth 2:04

Yeah.

James Piper 2:04

And we thought, yes, that's the missing piece of our DRS story. So let's do something about DRS where in countries where it's gone well, and that means we've done our first five-episode arc, which is just an unbelievably unplanned series.

Robbie Staniforth 2:20

These two guys can talk about anything for any length of time. It's so true. But the main thing was that um it wasn't about just being positive about something, because the reason we hadn't talked about the positivity was because it was all couched in what's going to happen in the UK. And the reality is there aren't that many that you can make a direct comparison to because the UK waste management infrastructure is so different, and that's why we sort of hadn't talked glowingly about previous countries, because they're sort of not the same as the UK and not very similar to how we go about um dealing with waste. But that being said, it is working in many corners of the world. So that is the elephant in the room, too, is it can work and we keep our fingers crossed that it will work in the UK.

James Piper 3:11

And so originally I'd planned to go through lots and lots of countries like Norway, Germany, Finland, all these countries where DRS is seen as a success. I started in Norway, got so stuck into Norway, I thought, actually, let's just do Norway because it's really good. It's got all the elements of what makes a successful DRS. So rather than just listing out countries, we're gonna spend all of our time looking at Norway, which is great because it's the only country I've actually been able to make a successful deposit return as a tourist. So it feels good. Okay, so you had a good experience yourself there. I did, and so did I mean UK government officials, I think it's fair to say, because when we were designing the UK DRS, Norway is the country the UK turned to a lot to say, how do we make this successful? And lots and lots of people went out to visit Norway to experience their DRS to help design ours.

Robbie Staniforth 4:03

Yeah, including myself. So Recoup, uh, which is a recycling charity for plastics, they organized a field trip for a few of us, you know, right in the early days of the policy being made, well before the government had sort of been clear about timelines and how it would work. We went on a field trip out to Norway um to primarily Oslo, um, but also the outskirts to see it in action.

James Piper 4:28

Just to give the context, Norway is a much smaller country than the UK. It's about 5.6 million people, and they are one of the very first countries in the world to develop a deposit return system. So originally they had one for reusable glass bottles all the way back in 1902, and then reverse vending machines were introduced in the 1970s, and today's system for plastic bottles and cans arrived in 1999. So it's been over 27 years now, the like DRS, as we are developing it, plastic bottles.

Robbie Staniforth 4:58

As they know it now, yeah. Okay.

James Piper 5:00

And their system is run by a not-for-profit organization called Infinitum.

Robbie Staniforth 5:04

Yeah, we had a talk from Infinitum, and they were really engaging in terms of what they do to run the system, put it together, the equivalent of exchange for change uh in the UK, basically.

James Piper 5:17

And the results are so extraordinary. I mean, they are amazing. In 2025, Norwegians return more than 1.6 billion plastic bottles and cans for their deposits, which equals about 92% of plastic bottles and 93% of cans. And if you include bottles and cans that are captured outside of that deposit scheme, it was coming in at about 98%.

Robbie Staniforth 5:38

Wow, that's amazing. So there's other bins, it's just a convenience type thing that people are recycling them elsewhere or whatever. It's not that they're kind of just sticking them in the bin, that extra sort of 7% for the plastic bottles that's missing.

James Piper 5:53

There is one thing Norway did that I actually didn't know they'd done. I didn't go out to Norway, so I haven't experienced this. But as I was doing the research, I was like, this is how you make DRS a success. What Norway did, or what Norway has done, is they've made DRS voluntary.

Robbie Staniforth 6:11

Yeah, which sounds bad on the surface of it. Who's gonna volunteer to do it?

James Piper 6:16

As far as I can tell, there is not legislation requiring you to put a deposit on your bottles and cans. You could put a drink on the market in Norway and not apply a deposit to it. But the government did something very clever and they said we're gonna develop environmental taxes. And there are two environmental levies that are applied to drinks bottles. They have like a single-use levy, which is relatively low, and then they have a I guess a recyclable collecting level levy where there is a fee applied if your collection rate is below a certain level, and at 95% collection, that fee completely disappears. Wow, okay. So what they did was they said we're gonna apply a fee, you achieve a 95% collection rate, that fee disappears. And that stimulated the whole of industry to say, we want a 95% collection rate. The only way you're gonna get a 95% collection rate is with a deposit scheme. You know, I'm not naive, I don't think you can achieve that with curbside. You have to do that through a deposit scheme. And that environmental levy is really, really expensive.

Robbie Staniforth 7:28

Ah, okay. So that's the avoiding the fees. Because in the UK, we obviously talked about in the previous episodes, the fact that there's a zero producer fee to even input into the system. Well, this is a totally different metric that's saying you're gonna get charged an awful lot unless you do it.

James Piper 7:48

Yeah, so in 2026, I believe, based on the exchange rate yesterday, that it is about 56p per container for a metal can and 34p for plastic. So you are in a position where if you think about the UK, we've got EPR that's like 5P on glass bottles and it's stressing the glass industry out and saying there's going to be the end of glass.

Robbie Staniforth 8:10

Yeah.

James Piper 8:12

You know, and you've got 2p coming through potentially on DRS. We are talking about huge numbers, 56p and 34p per container as an environmental levy from the government if you're not achieving a 95% return rate.

Robbie Staniforth 8:27

Very clever. It seems to have driven the right behaviour and makes one wonder why the UK government didn't go for something similar. It's it's very punitive. Let's like call a spade a spade. It's like we are ha you need to be a very strong government to push that through, don't you? To say we actually uh do believe in high taxation and we will tax you unless you do this thing. And I think that's possibly where the politics in the UK fall down somewhat to have such a heavy-handed line where businesses will be taxed at a high level is a bit problematic in the UK, I would say, given our political culture.

James Piper 9:07

Rather than legislating DRS and saying we have to have a DRS system, I'm a big fan of no, we're just gonna have a fee if you don't achieve a certain recycling rate. Because you let industry solve how to get the recycling rate, whether they want a deposit system or curb cycle, whatever, industry can solve the problem, not the government. The government can just make money out of it if they don't solve the problem. So you can just phase that in and say, well, this year we're gonna have a 70% collection rate, then 75%, then 80% then 85, then 90%, 95%. And and DRS will come in in that way. Now, I guess the government might be doing that because they've said they're gonna have these targets each year on return rates, and no one really knows how they're gonna penalize them. So you could do it that way. I would be absolutely astonished if this government or or reform or conservatives or anyone said we're gonna put that kind of levy. Yeah, it's just not gonna be that high. Highly unlikely. Infinitum's website has this quite interesting calculator because what they're saying is, and this is why I think it's voluntary, they're saying if you want to put a drink on the market and you want to avoid the environmental levy, you have to put a deposit on, because they're they've basically created a closed system. They said if you're in the deposit system, you're part of our collective 95% container rate, so you get a discount. And if you're not in our system, if you just put a drink on the market and you don't have a deposit, then I think you do pay the environmental levy, even though the whole category is achieving more than 95%. It's not about the category, it's about whether you are part of the system achieving 95%. And so it's quite compelling when you go on this calculator because they're basically going, Do you want to be part of our DRS or not? If not, here's your 50p per container bill. If yes, you've just saved 50p per container. You know, that's basically what the calculator does. So it's pretty, pretty straightforward in terms of a motivator for drinks companies putting a product on the market.

Robbie Staniforth 11:00

And you can see how they've developed that over time to say, effectively, if you don't like the deposit return scheme, collect your own containers and get to 95%. Good luck doing that on your own. Like, unless you've got some sort of post-back or refill system where the people consuming your drinks come to your store to refill them or something, you're snookered. There's no way you're going to be able to do that. And so that that's where competition and collaboration intersects, doesn't it? You've got this motivating factor that your competitors are doing, and you can't compete with them unless you're part of this great collaboration that all of the brands then sign up to and believe in because they are seeing a massive benefit compared to what they could be costed or paying.

James Piper 11:52

So beyond the environmental levy, there's then the deposit itself. And in terms of value, Norway is actually fairly similar to the proposed UK amount. So again, accounting for exchange rate, it's about 17p for a container up to 500 mil and 25p for larger containers. And the UK is currently proposing a flat fee of 20p. So we're we're in that range. And having a meaningful deposit is a very important part of a successful DRS. And this is where parts of the US have got very stuck because their deposits are often fixed into legislation and and it's difficult and politically hard for states to change those deposits. Sure. And so there are, I think there are 10 states that have a deposit return scheme in the US. They call it bottle bills. I think Oregon started using the term bottle bill, and then everyone sort of copied it. So now they call it bottle bills. Um I think there's 10 states that have uh DRS, and seven of those states start with a five cent deposit. So it's just not enough money. And they've been five cents for you know 20 years. So Hor Oregon is a good example of this actually, because its five cent deposit got redemption rates in the early days of 90%. So, you know, 20 years ago they were getting redemptions around 90%. But over time, as the five cents is worth less, yeah, you you watch your redemption rates fall. And they fell to 64%. Really? In 2015. Wow. So you've got something that started at 90 because the five cents was meaningful, coming down to 64% as the five cents is less meaningful. The state decided to double the deposit to 10 cents in 2017 and the redemption rates rose again. So Oregon is such a nice case study of like proof that the value of the deposit is really important.

Robbie Staniforth 13:46

In my mind's eye, I can't conceive of how a deposit return scheme could go backwards in return rates. So it's crazy to realize that it's not all free money. You know, of course you're going to be motivated to do it, depending on that level that you set, really has a massive impact.

James Piper 14:05

And it will happen in the UK. If you don't change that 20p and the 20p becomes worthless over time, you eventually start losing redemption rates. So you have to keep adjusting the deposit. You have to keep adjusting it for inflation. Motivating people is pointless if returning the thing is a pain. And Norway have got this right. I mean, lots of countries that do DRS well have got this right in terms of making sure that there are enough return points. And there are, I think, around 3,500 reverse vending machines in Norway and around 10,000 manual return points. That is an extraordinary number of return points for a country of only 5.6 million people. So just to put that in context, the UK is forecast to have about 16,000 reverse vending machines and 25,000 manual return points. So we will have three times the number of collection points compared to Norway, but for 12 times the population.

Robbie Staniforth 15:01

Wow, okay. That's so the ratios are going to be way off compared to Norway.

James Piper 15:05

Yeah, now there is an argument. I guess Norway is probably, I haven't done this research, but I think Norwegians would agree with this, more spread. Oh, okay.

Robbie Staniforth 15:15

The population density is not the same. Yeah, their landmass is huge for the remote.

James Piper 15:18

I've had some lovely trips around Norway. I've been up to Tromsso, I got the boat down to Bergen, the train to Flam, but you can just experience that, you know, fjord lots and lots of spread population. So you probably do need more reverse vending machines. Whereas in the UK, you're gonna have uh, you know, we've got quite a small country, we're densely populated, small countries, so we've got lots and lots of cities.

Robbie Staniforth 15:38

Yeah. I think we're right to be cautious about uh comparing them directly because yeah, the geographies are different and things, and um, you know, far-flung corners of Norway that still need to have a way to return their containers. But the central point of you need to make sure you've got enough so that people can find it easy, so that people don't go to, say, a supermarket and then a second supermarket and a third as you did in Ireland and have no way of trying to return it. You know, that is the central issue, isn't it? And uh a way you combat that is by having more machines, whether it's d density or not. You just need a lot of places that you can go and return it so that you don't get into this situation where you're trying to give something back and you actually just can't get your deposit.

James Piper 16:30

And there is a difference between Norway and the UK in that Norway is, I think, quite strict. You sell a drink, you have to have a return point. Simple. In the UK, we are being much kinder to the retailers in terms of saying, from what I can see, we're saying things like um if you're a really small shop, you can exempt you can be exempt because actually it's quite hard for you to sort bottles and cats. From what I can tell, you don't get any of those exemptions in Norway. You have to, if you sell a drink, you have to provide a return point. Um, we will have things like uh community rules where um if you're a shop near another shop and that other shop has agreed to have a reverse vending machine, you might not need to have one because there's one just down the road. So again, the UK is taking more of like an efficiency perspective. We kind of want our machines to constantly be in use. So actually, rather than having, as I've got down the road from me, you know, I've got a small Tesco, a small co-op, another small corner shop, if all of them had a reverse vending machine, they're sharing my village. And you probably only need one. So if you want to be Uber efficient, you would do that, which is what the UK is doing. But I prefer the Norway model, which is I don't even have to think about where a reverse vending machine is. I know every shop is going to take back this bottle or can. I'm not gonna know that in the UK.

Robbie Staniforth 17:51

Yeah, sure. And it it goes back to, I remember your story about trying to return a vape, your experience of someone saying, I think they've got a bin next door. You know, that's gonna be that is genuinely gonna be replicated in the UK for the deposit return scheme.

James Piper 18:05

And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we talked about our reuse scheme. We put 80 bins across UI for reusable containers. That's 80 bins for 10 cafes, you know, it's completely disproportionate because you've got to make it really easy to return. Yeah. You've just got to make it so that the second someone's finished their drink, there's a bin. Otherwise, you're gonna lose it. And it's the same here. Like, we need to make the take back as simple as buying it.

Robbie Staniforth 18:34

Yeah, and even in Norway, where the takeback is simple and they've got a high density, high number of machines per population, they still have this difference between what gets returned through the scheme and the extra few percent that comes through other means, other, you know, general recycling or whatever. So it just goes to show even when it's as dense as that, you're still not going to have the perfect scheme where absolutely every container gets its deposit redeemed.

James Piper 19:04

One interesting fact I found is that if you were to rank all the shops by how many they collect, how many containers they collect, Norway's largest collector is actually not a shop. It is an organization called Oda. Sorry if I'm butchering that Odor, um, which is basically the Norwegian equivalent of a cardo. Okay. So this is them shifting to could we do home collections? So Accado is a food, grocery, retailer, but they are only online. So they deliver to your house. Odor is the same. And they have grown in five years from collecting three million containers to ten million containers. Um and what happens is customers buy a roll of bags, I think from Odor or from the scheme, I'm not sure. But they buy a roll of bags and there's a barcode on each bag. They fill the bag with the bottles and cans, they give it to the Odor driver. That barcode is then scanned and presumably linked back to their account, their house, so that when the bottles and cans are counted, the deposit is returned directly. Um, it's actually returned as store credit in this example. News flash.

Robbie Staniforth 20:06

It's easier to just stay at home and do it. You know, it's really, yes, you sort of think, oh, how, you know, prevalent is it? Do people really care? I take a lot of hope from that. You know, people do care. They do want to do the right thing. Very few people are picking up a plastic bottle or an aluminium or steel can and deliberately throwing it into a river or into their general waste bin thinking I don't care about the environment, just burn it or landfill it. If you make it easy, as it sounds like Oda have done, then of course people are gonna want to get their money back. That's the whole point of having this deposit, isn't it? That you there's some value there. The the only thing that's gonna stop you is it being inconvenient and just annoying in your day, don't have enough time to do it. We all live increasingly busy lives. Going back to find a store, and oh no, that store doesn't work, need to go to the next store. That's what's gonna stop it. If you just sat at home saying, here's a bag, put it in a bag, give the bag to the driver, doesn't get much simpler.

James Piper 21:11

There is one enormous advantage Norway has that the UK doesn't, and that is time. It's been going for 27 years. UK is just starting that journey. And I think it's fair to say, and and I'm sure the Norwegians would say this, returning bottles and cans is now part of their culture. They are incredibly proud of their deposit system, as they should be. I think this is where we look at countries like Lithuania who have only just introduced DRS. I mean, Lithuania started, I think, in 2016, and within three years they got up to 92% from 35%. So they have proven that actually you can you can go fast. Obviously, as we talked about in the episode where we talked about Lithuania, they had a lower starting point, you know, 35%. So you can have a dramatic impact. But to get to 92% in three years is astonishing. And I think, you know, I was looking at a Tomra news article where they were saying it just exceeded all expectations. So it is amazing having a country that has moved so fast and gives me some hope that the UK could do the same. But we shouldn't pretend, you know, these countries, Germany, Finland, Norway, these guys who have amazing DRS systems. It is a part of their culture. And we have a big job to get this into the UK culture.

Robbie Staniforth 22:30

Yeah, I think on the upside, you know, once it starts embedding in, you can create that culture. You know, it's it's not always there necessarily to begin with. You know, it's like just normalizing behaviour and behaviour change that they'll be thinking very carefully at Exchange for Change exactly what and when they communicate. Because at the moment, it's not really appropriate to be talking to the average citizen. You know, they're doing almost no communications that I've picked up anywhere about it's coming in October next year. They're waiting until the exact right moment, hopefully, to be everywhere at once explaining exactly what you need to do so that they don't get the apathy of the average person who's, oh, it's too complicated, I don't engage with that, and I don't know where to go and what to do, and it's a pain. I used to be able to put it in my box at the front of my house or my bin at the front of my house, and now I've got to go drag it around town or whatever.

James Piper 23:32

And they will spend a lot on marketing, I think. If you're setting up a two, you know, £1.6 billion system, you definitely want to make sure it's used. And so they will, I'm sure, have quite healthy budgets for marketing. And they will benefit quite a lot from the media being quite positive at the start, I think. So we will end up with a lot of news stories. I mean, it is newsworthy for sure. To introduce DRS. So often we have campaigns, recycling campaigns, where we're doing something a bit different and it doesn't cut through the media because they're like, yeah, it's interesting, but no one really cares. Everyone has an opinion on DRS, whether it's good or bad, and therefore it is headline grabbing, it is newsworthy. They will benefit from this probably being one of the biggest recycling news stories ever. Yeah. Literally ever. Yeah. You know, and we had this issue. Do you remember they um when they introduced the waste electrical legislation, which was all about recycling waste electricals, it was on the same day that they um introduced the smoking ban in pubs. Yes. So we got no coverage, no one knew about waste electrical legislation because it was just the back page of, you know, we're talking about smoking in pubs, and that was newsworthy. DRS, in my opinion, is the equivalent of banning smoking in pubs. It's that level of newsworthy. So nut in my, I don't think anything will trump it.

Robbie Staniforth 24:51

Yeah, thinking about that smoking ban, it was a mass-scale change where it was strange. You know, the first time you walked into those pubs and were like, it actually smells pretty bad in here without the smoke to mask it. The equivalent to that is going to be being at that supermarket, seeing generally probably pretty massive machines going in and thinking, what's that all about? And having this slightly different interaction in terms of the receipt and stuff and the bill at the end when you're when you're shopping. Never mind just that going into a shop and buying an individual soft drink. It's gonna change massively.

James Piper 25:29

After these four trash talks on DRS, I definitely get the feeling there isn't one magic ingredient. It's not just set the deposit at 20p and suddenly you've solved recycling. That's not how it works. There are so many aspects. You've got to have the deposit set at the right level. It needs to be enough that people actually care about giving their drinks back. Industry needs an incentive for the system to succeed, and we've demonstrated that with Norway's environmental tax. Returning has to be ridiculously easy. You need thousands of locations integrated into places that people are already going. The machines need to work, the material needs somewhere worthwhile to go. You need high collection rates to justify putting such an expensive scheme in place. And people need time for it to become normal. We need to be quite forgiving in these first few years where it's all going to be funded by unredeemed deposits. And we will be forgiving, but you know, we will also scrutinize and we will also make sure that Exchange for Change are motivated to do a good job. That's what we're here to do. Having done four episodes on it, I am optimistic. I'm excited. I hope October 2027 happens. I'm d I still doubt it, but I hope. And so I guess our big question for Exchange for Change next week is with all this knowledge we've gained from the last four episodes, will the UK be ready? Additions and corrections. We owe Smint an apology. Oh no. Sorry. Really? We said it would be red in the RAM for two reasons. Because it was made of polystyrene, which I think would put it as red in the ram. So I think we were safe on that one. Okay, so we're safe. But also, we said it would be red because two of its dimensions were smaller than four centimetres. So to be to not be red, you need two of your dimensions to be bigger than four centimetres. And I then went to this live event uh that we did a couple of weeks ago, and I spoke to APRL and I said, God, can you believe Smint is smaller than four centimetres? And Alice there said, Well, you need to be careful because four centimetres is smaller than you actually realise. And there'll be some joke here about men and sizes and all sorts of things, but she whipped out a ruler, showed me what four centimetres was, and I was like, Oh my god, I think Smint might actually be four centimetres in two dimensions. Got home, and it's exactly I think it's four centimetres by six centimetres, and it's exact. So Smint actually is not red because of size, it's fine, even though it doesn't meet the talking rubbish criteria of being bigger than a tennis ball, it does meet the government criteria. It would still be red because of the polystyrene, but I feel we have to correct, and actually, Smint would not be red because of its size.

Robbie Staniforth 28:16

Okay, fine. So anyone out there thinking we we create packaging that's very similar to that size box needn't worry so much.

James Piper 28:25

Just get your ruler out.

Robbie Staniforth 28:26

Get your ruler out. That's what I should do on a weekly basis. Okay, that four centimetres. Well, never forget it now.

James Piper 28:32

Never forget it. And I was in MS the other day. The Christmas goods have started appearing. Really? I actually we need to talk about this because mince pies have been in car for about a month now. Really? That's too much, isn't it? That's crazy. Who's eaten mince pies in September?

Robbie Staniforth 28:47

Mad, yeah.

James Piper 28:48

I thought I thought there was like a sort of Halloween thing that happened first. No, no, no. Christmas stuff has arrived. We like to talk about MS having electronics in their packaging. But I was pretty excited. I was walking down their Christmas aisle and I couldn't see anything that had electronics in it. Okay. So I was thinking maybe they've turned a corner. So imagine my frustration at being tagged in a LinkedIn post sharing the Halloween light up cauldron sweet tin. So this is a small like cauldron that's got a light in it and sweets. Built-in battery, which according to the instructions is non-rechargeable and non-replaceable. And the tag on the tin literally discourages the removal of batteries by talking about all the warnings of choking on a used battery, you know, with the line. Um bear in mind this is a sweet tin targeted at children. Keep used batteries out of reach of children. Like, should we just not should we just not put deadly batteries in sweet tins? Like, I just feel this is a basic thing.

Robbie Staniforth 29:50

That's crazy, yeah. How like food and sweets and toys have just become intermeshed is absolutely crazy, in my opinion.

James Piper 30:00

They love a light, don't they? They love to put lights in stuff. I got the chocolate biscuits last year that had a light. I got the musical biscuit tin. Oh my goodness. So I've got a feeling we just haven't seen the electronic Christmas packaging yet. It hasn't arrived. We've got the mince pies, we've got the basics. Much like holidays are coming in the Coca-Cola ad, I feel like electronics in packaging are coming in MS. And this year, I'm doing a whole trash talk on it. This year we're gonna, that's gonna be our Christmas episode, I think, going through the MS Electronic Christmas packaging. We'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organization looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurety.com. And if you want to help our podcast to grow, the best thing you can do is to tell your friends and family about us, or you can leave us a review. And if you leave us a review, you could be Robbie's review of the week.

Robbie Staniforth 31:12

Great. So we've got one from Bully Bolton. It's an Apple five-star review. And I assume this person must have listened to our hundredth episode because they mention a book that they received from us in the post. Yes. Number one recycling podcast. After receiving a rather nice book in the post with a 30% recycle content plastic envelope.

James Piper 31:35

Oh, they got a 30% one. Okay. There were some 50% floating around. I'm surprised we got a five-star review with a 30% review. With just a 30%, yeah.

Robbie Staniforth 31:44

I appreciate that. Thank you. They've overlooked it. I felt obliged to write a review. I never tire of telling people that I listen to a geeky podcast and try and pass on James and Robbie's advice to be the best recycler possible. My enthusiasm in telling people about imminent soft plastic curbside collection has backfired with the national delay. However, it just gives me another opportunity to tell people about the podcast. Keep it up, lads.

James Piper 32:14

Very nice review. Thank you so much.

Robbie Staniforth 32:16

And so sorry about that delay. We have stitched people up a bit there.

James Piper 32:19

It wasn't our fault. You can follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. Also join our Discord, it's the easiest way to engage with us and listeners of the show. And the link to all of those things is in the show notes. Rubbish or not? I am going to be honest, I have been burning my hands for too long because I have refused to throw out my oven gloves. Oh, they're worn through, are they? Meaning it has got to a point where I might as well not use them. I might as well just take my hands and put them on the pan. Because they've worn through so much. And so Ellie decided to get me some new oven gloves, which was very kind. So I have some old oven gloves to throw out, Robbie. Rubbish or not?

Robbie Staniforth 33:09

Well, I suppose it depends on the material, doesn't it? There's lots of different types of oven glove. We prefer the silicon one, the sort of grab mit. It's kind of uh I don't know how to describe it. Yeah. A grab mit. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm sure people do. Um and but actually what we do, speaking of it, them wearing through a little bit, there's two of them, you know, so you can sort of one in each hand or whatever. I actually tuck the one into the other so it's double thickness and just use one hand for the oven. Now it's silic silicon rubbery stuff. We're going into the hot water bottle terrain there. So I don't think that's recyclable.

James Piper 33:48

We've had a lot of silicon in the last few weeks, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, silicate. It's completely unintentional.

Robbie Staniforth 33:54

Um, but we do also have the traditional uh for outdoor cooking generally. Um we've got the traditional ones, you know, where it's one piece of material and you slide your hands in. Is that the one you you're disposing of?

James Piper 34:07

Yes, that's the one I'm disposing of. Yes, just fabric. Um and then the new ones Ellie's bought me is like fabric, and it's got like a silicon pad on it. So that's gonna be really complic. I think that's gonna be rubbish. That's gonna be rubbish. Or I cut the silicon pad off, actually. Yeah. Yes, now this could be interesting because I guess what's worth saying here is about fabric, because there's two different types of fabric of textile collection. So you have depending on your council, you might have like a reuse collection. So Bristol, they will accept our textiles from Curbside, but they have to be in a good condition. They have to be reusable. And what they're gonna do, uh fairly obviously, is reuse that textile. Then you get rag collections, so collecting something that's been worn, and this is where you might have um like a donation point or a charity shop might take some worn, they might take rag uh rags rather than reusable clothes. So the key is to check to find a place that will take rags because with a used oven glove, you're not gonna want someone else to reuse that because the point is that it's not functioning anymore.

Robbie Staniforth 35:11

No, it basically needs to be shredded and used for what's called shoddy, you know, to make new materials out of it. So I would say or not, the material oven glove, uh, it's not rubbish, it can be recycled, but you're gonna have to find a collection point to put it into. In Bristol, as you say, it is for usable items. I wouldn't be putting it in the recycling um outside the front of my house.

James Piper 35:39

And then with my new ones, I'm gonna have to cut off the silicon at the end, throw the silicon away, and then the rest can be put into a rag collection.

Robbie Staniforth 35:49

Well, let's just hope they have a long and happy life before you get to that point.

James Piper 35:58

Rubbish news. During 2025, there was a trial of flexible plastic collection in Swansea and the Vale of Glamorgan, and the results have just been published by RAP in the last week or so. And I just thought there were some interesting things to pull out from this. So, obviously, flexible plastic we've talked a lot about, and we talked about the flex collect trials and stuff we've been doing in the space, but it's really cool to see some trials happening in Wales and what they've learned. Uh, so almost 40,000 households took part over nine months. The material was sent to JPLAS, which is a UK recycler, and JPLAS were looking for LDPE and PP, uh so polypropylene, so low density polyethylene and polypropylene. And the councils were giving out blue plastic bags, which had a hundred percent recycle content. Now, as far as I know, these trials weren't linked to Flex Collect, but they linked the style to Flex. So they were like, we're gonna use blue bags because that's what Flex Collect have used. So it's nice to see trials that are kind of being independently run where people are going, okay, let's utilize the knowledge that has been gained from the work we've been doing in these trials.

Robbie Staniforth 37:06

Yeah, and they were very engaged with us to find out what was going on through the Flex Collect trials. It was great to see that they mirrored some of the things that clearly worked in in the Flex Collect trials.

James Piper 37:17

Great. And so in the nine months, they collected over 150 tons, which amounted to about 290 grams of plastic per household that took part per week, which is a good amount of flexible plastic. Um, and across the two local authorities, about 65% of what they sent for recycling was target material. So stuff that isn't target is gonna be things like cling film, polystyrene, pouches, sachets, those kinds of things aren't gonna be target. But 65% of what they received was what they were looking for. Low density polyethylene becomes bin bags normally, and polypropylene will be used for trays, pot stubs, and trays normally. I think 76%, and I assume this is of the target material, was recycled, with J PLAS actually saying the results were better than they expected. And interestingly, they said that the material that was received was comparable to what they were getting back from supermarkets. Participation was the issue with an average of 60% of households taking part. Now, this was because, or they cited the reason is because they called it a trial. So, by saying this thing is a trial, people go, oh well, if you're gonna take it away in 12 weeks, there's no point me starting to get used to it. And actually, there were very different participation rates between the two areas. So Vale of Glamorgan had a particip a participation rate of 71% and Swansea 49%. So very, very different. This is thought to be because the Vale of Glamorgan does weekly collections of flexible plastic and Swansea did fortnightly. So this just demonstrates how different your recycling rates can be if you do fortnightly versus weekly. If it's a trial that you're not really engaging with, I can understand why participation rates are lower if you've got to remind yourself when the collection is, as opposed to just going, it's every week, I don't have to remember. Now at the end of the trial, Swansea decided, I think, to continue its flexible plastic collection in the trial area. And the Vale of Glamorgan seems to be planning or has planned to extend the service, which I think they have now done. And certainly because we put up a social media clip last week about Wales and the number of bins, I had lots of people commenting saying Vale of Glamorgan was collecting flexible plastic. So I think that has continued now.

Robbie Staniforth 39:25

That's brilliant to hear. And my rubbish news this week is on the same topic of flexible plastic recycling. We really should compare news. It fortunately is not exactly the same news as this uh trial from Wales. This is about the University of Birmingham, uh, their plastics network, who've come out with a new report called Simpler Recycling, Hidden Impacts for Circular Plastic Systems. And this is all about really the delay, mostly around the delay to soft plastics collections, flexible plastics from people's homes. And it was great to see a report from um an academic institute to say: look, things are not really going right in the UK, particularly for plastics reprocessing infrastructure, and that, you know, there's lots of reasons for that, and they cited some of the issues. But what I wanted to pull out from the report and the the news report I saw was some of their findings of what needs to happen to make all plastics, this was including bioplastics, compostable, biodegradable plastics, in their study, what needs to happen for them. The first point was investment in infrastructure is needed. And now I think anyone who's been involved in the recycling industry understands about the requirements for infrastructure, but it was great to see that that was their absolute top point. They were then talking about what infrastructure, upgrading the MERFs to sort the material, anaerobic digestion, in-vazzel composting in rural and low-income areas, and then obviously the actual reprocessing plants themselves. Stimulating the markets was the second thing they talked about. So using extended producer responsibility and the plastic packaging tax to actually create demand, which it hasn't really done yet. So we have tools in the arsenal, is what the report is saying, but we're just not using them correctly. We're not stimulating it, coming back to Norway and what they did. They said, hey, it's a big old tax. If you don't do this thing, you're gonna pay much more than what you would invest into a deposit return system. We need something very similar for if you don't use recycle content. And then finally, and importantly for me as a policy guy that I haven't mentioned very much recently, they need to, the government needs to align simpler recycling with everything else that's going on. Deposit return scheme, extended producer responsibility, emissions trading scheme, all of these policies and a system level review is required for all of these policies because otherwise they're just sort of not working with one another, they're competing against each other, and certainly we see that with plastics, some of which will be in a deposit return scheme, PET bottles, other plastics, some of which will be in EPR, such as um the HDP milk bottle. So a really brilliant report. Recommend you uh go take a read if you're interested.

James Piper 42:37

Rubbish question. Today's question was an email from Lizzie, and she said, and this is one of my favourite rubbish questions we've ever been asked. My family WhatsApp regularly turns into a rate my meal deal competition. Mark's awarded out of 10 for the main, the drink, and the snack combo. I keep getting marked down for opting for a PET 500ml bottle of Coke instead of a 330mm aluminium can based on the recyclability of the vessel. I have tried to explain that PET, especially with its tethered cap, is widely recycled and it should not be a negative point on my score. But I have been accused of being a plant for big cola. Please, can you help me convince my siblings that actually I should be rewarded for value for money rather than score fewer points due to the perception of what is more environmentally friendly? Wow, what a great question. I'll give you a minute to think about this while I just address the PET question. I would like you to design the most eco-friendly meal deal. Oh. So I'll give you a minute. I'm gonna quickly address the PET thing. I think with the PET bottle, we have said before that we would choose an aluminium can for a drink. However, from a recyclability perspective, PET bottles are great. And because Coke, specifically Coke, use 100% recycled plastic in their bottles in the UK. You're stimulating that by buying a PET bottle. So I am not against anyone buying a PET bottle. So, Lizzie, if you just want an answer to your question to give to your siblings, from a life cycle perspective, a PET bottle is going to be better than an aluminium can. From a weight of material perspective, the aluminium can is going to be better than the plastic bottle. But they are much of a muchness. There is not really any difference between the two because in terms of material use, it's the can. In terms of life cycle, it's the bottle. So really it comes down to which one would you prefer to use? Which one do you feel better about using? That's why I often end up with an aluminium can, just because I don't know, I have got this ingrained like I don't want to buy too much plastic in my life all the time. You know, I don't want to be seen as just supporting plastic. So I'm quite happy to buy an aluminium can. But um but it is a tricky one because there's no obvious answer. Now let's go deeper than the drink. Robbie, what do you think? If you were going into a supermarket today, what would you be buying? We should do this bit by bit. So what snack are you going for?

Robbie Staniforth 45:05

I'll give you an insight into what I actually get, and then I'll give you what I think is probably a better packaging equivalent. So the main, I would get the chicken club sandwich. Yeah. It's in the triangle, it is recyclable, it's plastic on card.

James Piper 45:23

Bigger triang bigger skillet because it's a club, or is it the same size as the city? No, it's the same size. Okay.

Robbie Staniforth 45:28

Same size. I squeeze it in there. Okay. Um, that's what I would get for the main. I get the two eggs in the pot as the side.

James Piper 45:39

Uh peelable lids. It's not surprising. There's a small insight I can give to you here, Robbie, that you and I went to have ham egg and chips once in a pub. Anyone who thinks Robbie's environmentally friendly is about to lose it on this question because he's not a vegan. We went to a pub where we had ham egg and chips, and the waitress said, um, it's unlimited eggs. And Robbie said, Excuse me. And she said, It's you can have as many eggs as you want. And Robbie said, Well, what's the most anyone's ever ordered? And she said, 14. And so Robbie went, please bring me 15 eggs. And I have this wonderful picture, which I may be able to put up on the video. So if you're watching a video, you will get this treat of Robbie with a plate of 15 eggs that he then proceeded to eat. That's true. I forgot about that.

Robbie Staniforth 46:26

So this, but this is only two boiled eggs. Yeah, that's good. It's kid stuff. Yeah. And then I get the uh, which I think is a is it PET or is it I think it's PET, but not clear PET, like coloured PET. Uh, like protein shake bottle as the as the side, for goodness shakes is the brand of it. So that's what I actually get. I had that earlier this week. In terms of for recyclability, I love the fact that the aluminium can is permanently recyclable. You know, it can just go round and round and round. Whereas plastic PT can only be recycled several times, you know.

James Piper 47:05

Although Infinitum will have an issue with you, because in their report they said they believed some of their plastic bottles had gone round the loop 30 times. Because when you start taking things and putting them in DRS and you don't get the contamination.

Robbie Staniforth 47:16

Oh, clean, okay.

James Piper 47:17

So there is a, you know, again, there's a question as to whether you might I will probably change my position from an aluminium can to a plastic bottle. Really? When DRS comes in.

Robbie Staniforth 47:27

Because it will be such a clean material that you can use it again and again. Yeah.

James Piper 47:31

Okay, I might do that.

Robbie Staniforth 47:32

So I think I'm gonna stick for now with the aluminium can. So I'll have to say sorry to Lizzie for siding with her family on that one. I'll keep the egg pot because that's a recyclable PET tray film lid that can go in your film recycling, although it's quite small, so maybe and got like a paper label on. So maybe that film lid is no good, actually. I think I would just put that in the general waste bin, but I'm gonna stick with the egg pot. And then I'm gonna double up on the pot and go for the um the pasta salad, you know, that comes in the bowl, also same PET container, just a bit bigger than the egg pot. That's what I've got.

James Piper 48:11

The environmental meal deal is lots of plastic. And then an aluminium can. Plastic pot times two. Wow. Do you want the actual answer? I can tell you what I think is the most environmentally friendly meal deal. So the challenge, uh so the snack is easy. Snack is really easy because you can get loose fruit in a snack meal deal.

Robbie Staniforth 48:32

Yes, of course you can.

James Piper 48:33

So you could have an apple, an orange, or a banana. And from an environmental perspective, the apple is going to be the best. It's the one that is grown most locally, arguably the one with the least packaging. I use quotation marks because obviously an orange or banana is actually their skin, but you know, the apple you can eat the skin. So you eat the whole core as well, don't you? I actually do. My son has really taken to eating apples on his way home from nursery, and then he passes the core to me, and then I do eat it. So nobody write in with the amount of cyanide I'm taking in from those pips. But you know, I do just genuinely eat the whole thing. I can't but when did you start eating an entire apple? Look, come on, 15 eggs. Don't judge me. So snack is easy. Apple. The mane, I did some weighing. You would not pick a salad pot. The salad pots are really heavy. They vary depending on size, but they are heavy. Um, now what I would do is between the sandwich and the wrap, the sandwich skillet came in at 15 grams, the wrap came in at 11 grams. So actually, if you were picking a mane, the wrap is the best one to go for. Okay. The drink, I was in the shop and I was thinking, can I beat the aluminium can? Which I'm not sure from a weight perspective, the aluminium can is going to be the best. But then I realized you can actually get some of those shots. Oh, you know, the clean shot ginger shots. Yeah, or the moji or mojo. Yeah, now the I think it's moju. Now the moju one is too small to recycle. I don't think I'm going to offend them like I offended Smint by saying that is smaller than four centimetres. So Moju is too small to recycle. So we're not going to promote that, but there is a slightly bigger own brand shot that we could promote. So of the drinks options, you have a standard 500mm bottle, weighs about 25 grams, an aluminium can is about 15 grams, and a recyclable plastic shot is 18 grams. So you can beat the Coca-Cola bottle by getting one of the shots, but I agree with you, if you're going for lowest weight, it's probably the aluminium can. So if you cared about weight, you would have an apple, a wrap, and an aluminium can. If you cared about carbon emissions, you didn't mind so much about the weight, then you would go apple wrap and the own brand shot. Greengrocer. It's the part of the show where we are trying to design our dream shop, picking an item each week and deciding what packaging it should be in.

Robbie Staniforth 51:08

And so this week we're going for a potentially uh meal deal side that wasn't considered the yogurt pot. Too much plastic.

James Piper 51:18

Too much plastic. The yogurt pot, yes, and partly because Smint with its polystyrene last week made me think of polystyrene. This is a product that was historically polystyrene and is now much more likely to be polypropylene, which is way more recyclable.

Robbie Staniforth 51:32

Yeah, and you do still, in the very like cheap yoghurts, you do still sometimes see polystyrene rather disappointingly. You know, the ones that are really sort of soft and like almost crumble, often children's yogurts, you do still see polystyrene. Those are, don't put those in your recycling. But so what do you think then? The yogurt pot. There's glass too. There's lots to consider. Um, lots of options for your plastic. Is it just straight polypropylene that's got to be the one?

James Piper 52:02

Well, there is, yeah, there's polypropylene. There's also glass, as you say, and there's paper composite. Like lots of companies are sort of moving to these paper plastic mixes or paper you can peel off, and then there's plastic on the inside, you're getting a lot of that. Um, I think, and uh I guess as well, there's the pouch. I was thinking about kids where they, you know, they have the squeezy pouch. But and while that's the least by way, I think from a recyclability perspective, I think we can do better. I feel like with green grace, we need to lean towards a bigger tub. You know, so much of what we're talking about in creating a supermarket or a green supermarket is how do we get bigger portions so that the packaging per portion is is less. And so I think we'll go for a bigger tub so we can discount some of the, you know, we can discount a pouch, a single-use pouch for one portion, all those kind of things. Now I had a look back when we did this as our rubbish or not, which was in episode 61. I mentioned that I had discovered that a lot of the larger pots, so like the Greek yogurt pots, were actually PET, not polypropylene. Oh yes. In my opinion, PET is the best plastic to use for food contact because circularity of it is well established. People can people are using it in drinks bottles. So you could very easily take some recycled PET and turn it from a bottle into a tub. Now, that is less likely to happen today because it's mostly bottle-to-bottle recycling. But the more we use PET and food contact, the more we can reuse and recycle it. So I would like to start seeing that.

Robbie Staniforth 53:34

You can imagine the whole of that aisle, lots of different types of yogurts, and even dare we say, we could move into some of our other product categories in future greengrocers and keep that same PET, rigid, quite a reasonable amount of material to do the job, but not overweighted or whatever, that makes it much easier and more valuable for recyclers to kind of go at that stuff when it comes to the murf and pull it out and make it worth sending to a recycler.

James Piper 54:06

Exactly. And then a foil lid to and encourage people to add it to a ball to make it bigger than a tennis ball. I guess the one question I have for you left is are you, you know, we talked about hummus having the lids that you could put back on. Oh, yes. What are we thinking for yogurt? Do we think it needs, because we're going for the big pot, do we need something to keep it nice in the fridge with a lid? Or do are we happy that the foil could just carry on being pushed over? Because it's a bit different. The trouble with hummus is they use the flexible film as a lids. Do we think foil is an?

Robbie Staniforth 54:36

Yeah, and some of the cheaper yogurts um do that too, you know, with the plastic film lid. I think if it's aluminium, the tab, you can always like fold it over the yogurt pot and it actually keeps it pressed down. The uh similar to the butterfold, if you will. Yes, the dead fold. The dead fold, that's it, yeah. Um so yes, no, I don't think we need a lid. We can just use the aluminium foil top to press it down.

James Piper 55:09

Residual rubbish. A while back I bought an electric dartboard. So this is a dartboard that has cameras around it to try and improve my dart game. Yes. When did you buy this? Ages ago. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I've seen this. It's in the house. I've seen I didn't know it had cameras. Yeah, it's got cameras, yeah, it's really cool. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, there's an argue. Look, you could there's could be a lot of judgment going on now because there's potentially increased waste electricals for a dartboard that doesn't need it. But I am so rubbish at keeping score that actually it's been really helpful for improving my Dart game. So I'm enjoying my electric dartboard. Now, the one I bought is called an Omni, and this is the only thing I've ever bought from an online retailer called Dart Shopper. So I was very surprised a few weeks ago when I got a tracking email saying your delivery from Dart Shopper is on route. And I was thinking, oh my god, someone you know, like you think it's fraud, don't you? If someone if you suddenly get a parcel that you don't expect, yeah. You think someone's doing something like this. So I got no notice of this, I just literally got your parcel is going to be delivered today. And so in the post I got this thing called an omni-splitter cable. I was like, what is this? Now basically, what had happened is with this electric dartboard, they've got a cable that runs to the power that powers both the computer that's in the dartboard and the lights. So a single cable powers both. And what's been happening is I think because they're sharing the power, the light has been dimming or the device has been overheating, one of the two things, on people's dartboards, and they've been calling up and complaining, and they've been having to send it back, and it's been becoming waste electrical. So you know, they've been fixing units unnecessarily. So this is like a warranty issue type thing. So they proactively sent out this cable that basically splits the power in two. So your light's gonna run on one channel and your computer's gonna run on the other. They sent it to everyone who has bought an Omni.

Robbie Staniforth 57:03

Wow.

James Piper 57:04

And they've put in the you know, in the text, this is going to increase the long-term performance of your device, it's gonna mean that it's less likely to end up as waste.

Robbie Staniforth 57:13

That's amazing.

James Piper 57:14

And I just thought this is brilliant, this is so good. I mean, other than the fact that I had no communication, so I literally just got a this thing's in the post, you start thinking it's fraud. Beyond that, it's great to see a company that's like, actually, we can just increase the longevity of our electrical device here by sending out a cable that's cost us a couple of quid, you know, and it's gonna make a big difference to people and the product and the life cycle of the product. So I was very, very impressed to see this, and therefore my emoji was thrilled, really happy that they'd done this.

Robbie Staniforth 57:43

Yeah, that's amazing. So, my residual rubbish this week comes in the form of a restaurant recommendation. It's called Spice Up Your Life. Very good name, very strong. Have you been there before? I don't think so, no. No, so it's in St. Nick's Market in the centre of Bristol.

James Piper 58:00

Okay.

Robbie Staniforth 58:01

I'm recommending this restaurant having not actually eaten there. Well, okay. Now that is rare, isn't it? That's risky. That is risky. Because a mutual friend of ours was eating there at the front. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop and join him for lunch. But he was eating at this new venue that I'd never stopped in, probably walked past loads and loads of times, hundreds of times before, and never stopped in. And the reason he eats there is because the food's very good, so I'm going to try it soon. Because they're the only place in the whole of St. Nick's market, and I did look around that don't use single-use packaging. They actually give you a china plate, real cutlery, they serve out the curries, unsurprisingly, with a name like Spice Up Your Life. It's various different curries that they do. And so this was one of those such a simple heartwarming thing. So that was probably the emoji, was heartwarming, that actually a takeaway vendor at lunchtime doing relatively fast food, albeit Indian fast food, could actually find a way to wash a few plates and some cutlery, even in a very kind of small food service environment rather than in a you know big restaurant or whatever. So the next time we're both in the city together, we're going to spice up your life for a curry.

James Piper 59:26

As always, thank you all for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. We absolutely love getting the opportunity to do this podcast each week. Join our Discord, follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. And everything we have discussed today can also be found on our link tree. The details to all those things is in the show notes. There is nothing left for me to say other than see you next bin day. Bye. Bye.