I have been trying go find out more, the local council have not replied which is pretty normal. Speaking to a friend who used to work there, the refuse collection is outsourced and the stats are based on what is collected kerbside rather than what happens after.
My brother recently attended a weekend long sustainability event. He reported back that the wrapper from an Oxo cube or Kraft cheese triangle is likely to fall through into waste, so store them in an aluminium can.
“Cellophane” wrappers from sweets need to be packed in a crisp bag if you have soft plastic collection.
Plastic meat trays go in the dishwasher, pet food pouches have to be rinsed.
I reckon to spend a couple of hours each week doing the right thing, then you get this news item Huge recycling centre in Avonmouth that cost £100m to close after just two years - Somerset Live
The solution seems blindingly obvious to me. Don’t buy drinks in plastic bottles. Ever. It will never be environmentally sustainable regardless of what tiny incremental changes are made.
It’s not going to happen though because consumers won’t give up on convenience choices or bulk savings.
Many plastic bottles of drinks don’t have glass or aluminum can alternatives at the point of purchase, especially when they are purchases ‘on the go’ rather than in a weekly shop where I suspect people buy larger bottles of soft drinks. I really prefer cans to plastic bottles but for household purchases, take the lemonade I mentioned earlier, a 2l plastic bottle might cost £1.35 and 6x330cl cans would be triple the cost or more.
What governments world wide need to be brave about is culling unnecessary plastic packaging entirely.
Legislate so the suppliers can’t put mushrooms in plastic punnets, meat in plastic containers, ‘veg mixes’ in plastic etc., it’s simply not required.
I did read at one stage that paper packaging might actually generate more CO2 than using plastic, maybe in relation to carrier bags, but it’s not just the production costs there’s the waste by-products - I’d rather have a composted brown paper bag ‘contaminating the soil’ than who knows what comes from plastic waste when thrown, incinerated or maybe even recycled.
Said it before but I don’t think they will legislate to reduce plastics, simply because with less plastic packaging to dispose of this might affect plastic recycling rates as there’s less recyclable vs non-recyclable waste so recycling %ages will be lower but that would be a good thing if there was less plastic to begin with! (Assuming no change in people’s overall recycling habits when they can).
I remember the urchins on the yellow trucks. 
