The Big Plastic Count And How You Can Help!

This is a free event to get information, resources and support whilst taking part in The Big Plastic Count 

We’re using too much plastic. The UK produces more plastic packaging per person than almost any other country in the world – only the US is worse. And if things carry on as they are, the amount of plastic waste produced around the world is set to double by 2040.

Supermarkets, brands and the government continue to push recycling as the solution to the plastic waste crisis, even though we’re producing too much in the first place and our recycling systems can’t cope. It's a smoke and mirrors game that maintains the status quo - continuing production. Recycling alone isn’t going to solve our plastic problem.

But at the moment, there’s nowhere near enough evidence to show how much plastic leaves UK households. And most of us have no idea where it really ends up when we throw it in the bin or the recycling. That’s why Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic have come together to create The Big Plastic Count.

Everyday Plastic is a small social enterprise founded by Daniel Webb who decided to collect every piece of plastic waste he generated for an entire year. With the help of a scientific researcher, he developed a unique methodology to analyse his year-long collection of plastic waste to calculate his personal plastic footprint and gain an in-depth insight into what he threw away and where it ended up.

Now, together, Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic are scaling this up and offering the public the same opportunity to get to grips with their own plastic footprint and gather the proof we need to push the government to get it right and set a target to reduce single-use plastic by 50% by 2025 and put a ban on sending our waste to other countries. This year, the government is starting to decide on targets to reduce plastic waste. Using the evidence from thousands of homes, we will reveal the truth about what is happening to the UK’s plastic waste and change the public and media narrative: Reduction is the core solution to the global plastics crisis as well as a shift to a reuse/refill economy.

To do this, we need households, community groups and businesses from all over the country to join in and tally their plastic for just one week – 16-22 May 2022. We also want schools to take part, and to allow for their busy term-time calendars, they’ll be able to choose the week they’d like to run the survey, anytime from now until 22 May 2022.