Plastic bags and wrappers are known as plastic films, flexible plastics or soft plastics.
You can already recycle some of these at collection points in many larger supermarkets. They accept carrier bags and the wrappers from kitchen and toilet rolls which may be labelled as PE - polyethylene.
Some supermarkets have now started to collect a wider range of films made from PP - polypropylene. You can usually recycle a wide range of packaging at these collection points, including:
- baby food pouches
- biscuit and sweet wrappers
- bread bags
- carrier bags
- cheese wrappers
- crisp packets
- fruit and vegetable wrappers
- pet food pouches
- salad bags
- toilet roll and kitchen paper wrappers
- wrappers for cereal, pasta, rice, and pulses
Compostable or biodegradable wrapper, bags or films cannot be recycled at these collection points.
You normally just need to make sure they are as clean as you can - shake out crumbs and eat that last crisp!
These are the stores that we know of which are running collection points for soft plastics in our area:
- Aldi
- ASDA
- Co-op: all Co-op stores (not Scotmid stores)
- Marks and Spencer: M&S Simply Food stores, as well as Princes Street and Gyle
- Morrisons
- Sainsburys: all full size supermarkets, Sainsburys branded stores, but not usually Sainsburys Local
- Tesco: all full size supermarkets, Tesco Extra and Tesco branded stores, but not usually Tesco Express
- Waitrose: Comely Bank and Morningside