[chimprich]

It's very hard to tell what happens to UK plastic recycling. A lot of gets shipped abroad for "recycling", where it is hard to check on what actually happens to it and little incentive for anyone to look into it too deeply.

It still seems like a good idea to keep separating plastic in recycling. At least some of it does get recycled, and having the plastic already available in a separate stream should make it easier to encourage additional programmes. However, the quoted numbers are probably very optimistic.