With the UK estimated to produce the second-largest amount of plastic waste per capita, Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic have launched 'The Big Plastic Count', an investigation to get to grips with the scale of plastic use in the UK.
The survey took place for one week in May 2022, with participants recording how much plastic packaging, and of what type, they threw in the bin or put in the recycling.
Some 248,957 people from 97,948 households across the UK took part in the count including 9,427 school students and 36 MPs. The results were then submitted for analysis.
On average, each household threw away 66 pieces of plastic packaging in one week, amounting to an estimated 3,432 pieces a year. If the totals for count week are assumed to be typical, this indicates that UK households are throwing away an estimated 1.85 billion pieces a week, or 96.57 billion pieces a year.
The most commonly counted items were fruit and vegetable packaging (1.02 million...