We talk endlessly about recycling – how much we do, how well we do it, and whether it’s enough. Yet beneath the headlines lies a bigger challenge: a huge portion of the waste we produce today simply can’t be recycled through current systems. It was never designed to be recycled in the first place. And that’s where things start to break down.
Why hard-to-recycle waste falls through the UK recycling system
Most people think of recycling as fairly straightforward. Separate your paper, plastics, glass etc, and it gets processed.
But modern waste streams aren’t that simple any more. A lot of what we use every day is made up of mixed or composite materials – crisp packets, coffee pouches, toothpaste tubes, pump bottles and blister packs – all of which are difficult to separate, expensive to process or incompatible with existing infrastructure.
Even when they can technically be recycled, the reality is often different. So, they fall through the cracks.
Why the UK recycling system can’t handle complex materials
The UK’s recycling system was built for a different time – when materials were simpler and easier to handle.
Today, packaging is lighter, more complex and designed for performance, shelf life and cost efficiency. Not recovery.
It’s mismatched. We’ve got a system designed for simplicity, dealing with waste that’s anything but. And the result is that a significant amount of waste ends up going where we don’t want it to – landfill or incineration – even when people have done the right thing and put it in their recycling bin.
The hidden challenges of hard-to-recycle materials
Most sustainability conversations focus on designing better packaging or encouraging people to recycle more. But the real challenges often appear further down the line.
Hard-to-recycle materials introduce a set of less visible problems:
- Separation: Many products are made from bonded materials that are difficult or impossible to split efficiently.
- Infrastructure gaps: Standard recycling facilities aren’t equipped to handle complex or mixed waste streams.
- Cost: Processing these materials is often more expensive than the value that can be recovered.
- Accountability: Once collected, it’s not always clear what actually happens to the material.
This is where the system begins to break down. Because collecting waste is only one part of the process, what happens next is what ultimately determines its impact.
How businesses struggle with complex waste
You can see this play out across all kinds of industries. Take retail, for example.
Returns, damaged goods and unsellable stock often end up as mixed waste – combining plastics, textiles, metals, and packaging in ways that make them difficult to process through standard recycling routes.
We consistently work with partners facing this challenge: large volumes of complex waste, with limited options beyond landfill.
By introducing tailored collection and recovery processes, those materials can be broken down, separated and redirected – ensuring recycling is always the priority, and limiting energy recovery to the smallest possible fraction of remaining waste.
The result isn’t just less waste going to landfill. It’s a clearer, more accountable system for dealing with materials that would otherwise be written off. And it highlights something important: This is a widespread challenge, playing out at scale across multiple sectors.
Why this matters more
There’s a growing pressure on businesses to do more – and to prove it.
Regulation is tightening. Landfill is no longer an acceptable solution. And sustainability claims are being scrutinised far more closely than they were even just a few years ago.
Saying something is ‘recyclable’ isn’t enough anymore.
The question to ask is: what actually happens to it?
Moving from recycling to full resource recovery
What we’re starting to see now is a shift away from thinking purely about recycling, and towards something broader: resource recovery.
That means looking at waste more realistically. Not just the easy-to-recycle materials, but the complex, messy, hard-to-handle stuff that makes up a significant proportion of what we throw away.
It’s about finding ways to extract value where possible and making sure that as little as possible ends up in landfill. Because what matters is dealing with waste as it actually exists – and at scale.
Where MYGroup fits in
This is where MYGroup focuses its efforts. Working with waste streams that don’t fit into traditional systems, we help businesses deal with materials that would otherwise be difficult to process.
That can mean recovering materials, using advanced sorting, or turning waste into energy where recycling isn’t viable.
The aim is simple: keep waste out of landfill, and make sure it’s handled in the most responsible way possible.
Recycling is just the start. The real challenge – and opportunity – is what we do with everything else.
