What Is Post-Consumer Waste & Why Is It an Important Environmental Consideration for Retailers and Suppliers?

Post-consumer waste. It’s a term you may have heard used, but do you know what it means?

Is it waste from households? Is it waste from industries? How should you dispose of it? What is its environmental impact? Afterall, waste, when not properly disposed of, can be extremely harmful to the environment and contribute to climate change.

Learn the answer to these questions and more in this article.

What is Post-Consumer Waste?

Post-consumer waste (PCW) is waste that is left over after it has served its original purpose as a consumer item, such as polythene used for food or product packaging. The large amount of household waste produced on a daily basis from food, drinks and product packaging is post-consumer waste and, if not dealt with properly, could cause major damage to the environment.

Post-consumer waste is either recycled, sent to landfill or incinerated, with the latter two being very harmful to the planet and contributing heavily to climate change. This is due to the harmful gases and toxins that are released into the atmosphere when PCW is disposed of via these processes. Hence why recycling PCW packaging, including PCW polythene and packaging, is vital.

Post-consumer Waste Statistics:

• In 2019, less than half (46%) of UK household waste was recycled.
• Also in 2019, 46.2% of UK plastic waste was recycled.
• 13,787,000 tonnes of UK municipal waste was sent to landfill in 2019.
• 6,626,000 tonnes of that UK municipal waste sent to landfill was biodegradable - waste that decomposes within a landfill to produce methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
• It is estimated that five million tonnes of plastic is used every year in the UK, nearly half of which is packaging.

What is Pre-Consumer Waste?

Pre-consumer waste is waste that is generated by manufacturers and industries, prior to it reaching the consumer. This can include discarded trimmings and faulty, defective items, including polythene discarded at an early stage of a manufacturing process, through to packaging used during transportation such as pallet wrap. It can also include general waste generated by restaurants, shops and factories (as opposed to post-consumer waste which is predominantly household waste).

Due to the larger scale of pre-consumer waste, it needs to be discarded properly, such as in skips or special collection bins, however a lot of it is not recovered, with it ending up in landfill or being incinerated, leading to the same environmental issues as post-consumer waste.

As well as recycling, pre-consumer waste can also be saved from this fate through its reintroduction into the manufacturing process. That is, being reused by the manufacturer for some other purpose, or being manipulated in some other way for reuse in the process.

What Are Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) Plastics?

Post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic is material that has been produced from post-consumer waste polythene.

The PCW polythene is recovered and melted down, ground up or shredded to produce small plastic pellets. These pellets can be moulded into new items or turned into plastic film.

Post-consumer recycled plastics are the plastic products created from this recycled post-consumer waste polythene.

PCR packaging helps reduce the impact of post-consumer waste on the environment, reducing the amount of PCW in landfill, plus it reduces the amount of new plastic required to be produced to meet demand.

From 1st April 2022, any plastic packaging produced in or imported into the UK that doesn’t contain a minimum of 30% post-consumer recycled content is susceptible to a plastic packaging tax. Find out more about plastic packaging tax.

How to do Your Part

At Industrial Polythene we are passionate about doing our small part for the environment, and we have expert knowledge around what eco-friendly packaging options are available, and can provide advice on how you can improve your packaging to reduce your environmental impact.

Why not contact us for a no obligation chat. We can even provide free samples of many of our PCW alternatives to help get you started.