As the festive season winds down and our bins start to overflow, many of us naturally look for a fresh start. Usually, New Year’s resolutions focus on hitting the gym or saving money, but there is a massive shift toward making our biggest pledge – one for the planet. In the UK, our reliance on single-use plastic is still a major hurdle, which makes January the perfect time to actually look at what we’re throwing away.
The numbers are pretty staggering. According to Defra’s July 2025 report, the UK produced roughly 2.3 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2024. While that is a slight drop from the 2.6 million tonnes we saw back in 2012, our household waste is still a huge problem. UK households discard an estimated 1.7 billion pieces of plastic packaging every single week, which averages out to around 60 pieces per household.
Tackling this issue can feel overwhelming, but a New Year’s resolution does not have to be an all-or-nothing commitment. This year, consider a resolution to consciously reduce your single-use plastic consumption. By making a few specific changes, you can significantly lower your personal contribution to those billions of pieces of weekly waste.
Practical Pledges for 2026
Committing to an idea is key to taking that first step in reducing plastic consumption. It gives your resolution meaning—and the gravitas to follow through. You can take this baby step by making your your pledge on our website.
It helps to focus on your personal use of single-use plastics. Is it coffee on the go? Or maybe it’s the plastic pens that forever seem to run out of ink? Perhaps it’s disposable shavers?
Here are a few suggestions that might help you make the switch.
The Coffee Cup Switch: The UK goes through roughly 3.2 billion disposable coffee cups every year. Most people think they’re recyclable. However, fewer than 1 in 400 actually get processed because the plastic lining is fused to the paper. Carrying your own cup is an easy way to stop this non-recyclable waste being burned or buried in a landfill.
A Reusable Pen: There is not a precise global tally of how many disposable plastic pens are used each year but the estimated numbers go into billions. A reusable, refillable pen, whether stylish or eco-friendly is a far better option than constantly
Audit Your Produce: The 2024 data highlights that snack packaging and fruit and vegetable wrapping are the two most common types of plastic found in UK household bins. These “soft plastics” are notoriously difficult to recycle, with only a small fraction of local councils collecting them. This year, pledge to buy your produce loose.
Bathroom Bars: Our bathrooms are full of rigid plastic. Swapping out liquid hand soap, shampoo and body wash for solid bars can save the average person dozens of bottles a year. Many of these bars now come in plastic-free, compostable packaging. This eliminates the need for bottles that take hundreds of years to break down.
A Clean Shave: Consumer behavior is changing towards eco-friendly options to disposable razors. Think electric or even ones that have interchangeable refill cartridges.
A Collective Impact
These individual choices might feel small, but the maths tells a different story. If every household cuts out just one piece of plastic a day, it can save billions of items being discarded each year.
The 2025 data is a reminder that while we’re recycling more, we are still producing and burning too much plastic. Let 2026 be the year to help break that cycle. By choosing less, “convenience wrapped.” and focusing on “reducing first,” we can actually protect our landscapes and oceans for the long haul.
