What is changing
Recyclable plastic film and flexible packaging is to be collected for recycling from both households and businesses across the UK **by 31 March 2027**.
That covers the material almost everybody assumes is already recyclable and is not: crisp packets, bread bags, cling film, pasta and rice bags, chocolate and biscuit wrappers, frozen food bags, bubble wrap, and — on the commercial side — pallet wrap and shrink wrap.
In Scotland, the Household Recycling Code of Practice is being put on a statutory footing, with kerbside collection of plastic film and flexible packaging among the changes being worked through. A new statutory Code is expected to go to consultation by the end of 2026.
- Deadline: 31 March 2027
- Applies UK-wide
- Households and businesses both
- Recyclable film and flexible packaging
- Currently general waste almost everywhere
- Councils are designing services now
What it means today — and why our other pages say the opposite
Until the change lands, **soft plastics and film are general waste** in almost every Scottish council's kerbside collection. Putting them in a recycling bin now contaminates the load rather than helping it.
That is why our council bin guides — Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fife and the rest — all say film goes in general waste. That advice is correct today and it will need rewriting by 2027, which is exactly why this page exists rather than a quiet edit later.
Some supermarkets already run front-of-store collection points for soft plastics, which is currently the only widely available route. That will remain useful in the meantime.
Don't wait until 2027
We already collect film and shrink wrap as its own stream — and it usually shrinks your general waste bill.
What businesses should do before the deadline
For a business, film is often the single biggest volume in the general bin and the one nobody separates because there has been nowhere for it to go. Retail, warehousing, hospitality and manufacturing all produce it constantly — pallet wrap especially.
Three things worth doing well before March 2027. **Find out how much you actually produce** — most businesses are surprised, because film is bulky and light so it fills a bin without weighing anything. **Separate it now** rather than waiting; we already collect film as its own stream. And **check your general waste volumes afterwards**, because taking film out often means a smaller and cheaper residual collection.
This sits alongside the existing requirement for all organisations in Scotland to recycle plastic, metal, glass, paper and card — covered in does my business have to recycle in Scotland.
Why film was left out for so long
Film is genuinely difficult. It is light, so a lorry-load weighs very little against the cost of collecting it. It tangles in sorting machinery — a sheet of pallet wrap can wrap itself round a rotating screen and stop a line. And it is frequently contaminated with food, which reduces what a reprocessor will pay for it.
It also is not one material. Bread bags, crisp packets and cling film are different polymers and multi-layer laminates, and separating them is harder than separating a bottle from a can.
None of that makes it impossible — reprocessing capacity has improved and the regulations now require it — but it explains why film was the last common household material to be brought in. The wider picture on how sorting works is in what actually happens to your recycling.
