Bubble wrap is undoubtedly useful for companies shipping their products in the mail or through parcel delivery networks, but very damaging for the environment as a plastic that decomposes very slowly, if at all.
What’s more the number of home deliveries has rocketed in the last few years thanks to the growth of online shopping and other ordering for delivery.
Bubble wrap is made from plastic but should not be placed into your recycle bin. Bubble wrap is classed as plastic film for recycling purposes, much like cling film. It should therefore be recycled separately. Many council run recycling sites accept plastic films for recycling.
Why Can’t Bubble Wrap Go Into Plastic Recycling Bins With Bottles?
While both bottles and bubble wrap are both plastics, plastic is a very broad category of materials. In most areas across the UK, kerbside recycling collections are offered for hard plastics, like bottles. These are collectively known as Group 1 plastics, also known as Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET for short).
Bubble wrap is not a group one plastic, it belongs in group 4, or Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE). For that reason, recycling processes are different, so placing it into your recycling bin with bottles would simply contaminate the waste stream recycling process if it is not removed prior to processing.
So, is bubble wrap recyclable? Yes, just not with the plastic bottles in your bin.
Why Don’t Councils Just Separate Bubble Wrap From Bottles At The Recycling Centre?
In an ideal world, we’d be able to simply put all plastics into a recycling bin together, however at the moment there is no reliable way to separate them other than by hand. The cost of that to councils or waste recycling companies would be prohibitive so the solution in the short term is to just accept group one plastics.
Why Is Bubble Wrap Used If It’s So Hard To Recycle?
Just because bubble wrap cannot go into your recycle bin at home doesn’t mean it cannot be recycled. Bubble wrap can be accepted at many council household waste recycling centres (HWRCs). It’s not a service that is universal yet, so check your council website’s waste section to find out what’s offered in your area.
The reason so many companies use bubble wrap as packaging is fourfold.
Bubble Wrap Provides Great Protection
The main reason bubble wrap was invented and is still used today is it solves an expensive problem – items can easily be damaged during transport, particularly with fragile items. Anything that’s vulnerable to knocks or drops can benefit from the cushioning properties offered by bubble wrap.
Bubble Wrap Is Cheap
The production of huge rolls of commercial bubble wrap has become commonplace over decades, and as a result is very cheap to buy in large volumes.
A Lack Of Easy And Affordable Alternatives
While this is becoming less true all the time, there’s a general feeling among manufacturers, particularly smaller manufacturers, that alternatives to bubble wrap are too expensive or too difficult to implement in their production lines and packing processes.
It’s Just What They Do
Replacing bubble wrap with a more sustainable material in deliveries simply isn’t particularly exciting for many companies, who would rather innovate with their products for customers than spend time and money solving a problem that they don’t really consider to be of high importance.
While a lot of larger companies now have teams of people working on minimising waste, bubble wrap is rarely a specific item mentioned as part their waste management plan alongside other recyclable materials.
Can Bubble Wrap Go Into General Waste?
Bubble wrap can go into general waste bins, but it isn’t ideal. It doesn’t break down well in landfill, potentially taking hundreds (if not thousands) of years to degrade – a clear environmental hazard.
What’s more, plastics contain chemicals that can release toxic gases and substances into the ground, so are much better recycled rather than thrown away wherever possible.
How To Recycle Bubble Wrap
Preparing bubble wrap helps in the recycling process, so being aware of what you can do before taking it to a plastic film drop off point helps the process work more efficiently.
Typically, you’ll find soft plastic recycling points in the recycling facility areas of grocery stores’ car parks, such as the major supermarkets, or alternatively bins might be provided in the stores themselves.
They’re often marketed as plastic bag recycling points, but if you look at the detail on the bins, you’ll generally find that click film, bubble wrap and bakery bags like those used for bread are taken too.
We’ve got more detail in our article on Supermarket Recycling Centres here.
Clean Recycling Is Better Recycling
Firstly, make sure it’s as clean as possible. If there’s stickers stuck to it, remove them as best you can. That doesn’t mean that you need to spend hours getting every last bit of the sticker off, just peel them off as best you can quickly. Most stickers should come off in one go, or without too much effort.
If there is any liquid or other dirt on the bubble wrap, a quick wipe can help the material be as pure as possible for recycling purposes.
Pop The Bubbles!
Next, rope the kids in if you’ve got some who are present and willing. Popping all the bubbles serves two purposes.
Firstly, the machinery used to process the recycling is often more susceptible to jamming with materials like bubble wrap than it is with cling film and bread bags.
Secondly, bubble wrap takes up less space once it’s all popped.
Kids love this job. I’ve no idea what the attraction is, even though I was exactly the same as a child. The moment you lay eyes on bubble wrap, you know exactly how much fun it’s going to be to pop it all.
In fact, even now I still get that childish enjoyment, several decades on. Admittedly, the excitement does wear off a lot quicker these days though!
Re-Use Bubble Wrap For Your Own Packaging
Finally, a point that has been made many times on this site, although it’s often overlooked.
Just like the re-use rather than recycling of plastic bags is better, bubble wrap doesn’t need to be a single use product, you can use it over and over again.
If you like to post gifts for relatives birthdays or even have a sideline hustle in selling craft items you create on eBay, keeping a stash of bubble wrap you’ve found in deliveries for reuse is a great approach.
Firstly, you won’t need to buy more bubble wrap which would be an unnecessary expense and contribute to even more plastic in the world. Secondly, you won’t need to worry about binning or recycling the bubble wrap at all.
Responsible disposal of bubble wrap means that less plastic ends up in the sea. Oceans are already littered with huge quantities of waste, and much of that is plastic. At best it’s an eyesore and at worst it threatens marine life, potentially even getting back into the human food chain either directly or indirectly.
Knowing how to recycle bubble wrap packaging takes such a small effort by checking recycling services in your area, and you can even do your bit for the environment by making sure that friends, family and colleagues are aware that it shouldn’t be going into their plastic bins at home.
