Food industry best at providing information about product recyclability

Consumers continue to feel strongly about sustainable and circular products. Three out of four consumers think it’s important that manufacturers use recycled material in production, and two out of three consumers place great value on a product’s recyclability, meaning its capacity to be recycled when it can no longer be used. 

These are some of the key findings in Stena Recycling’s second annual consumer survey Circular Voice, asking 5,000 consumers aged 18-65 in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Poland a number of questions regarding sustainability and circularity of products and materials. 

New question about industry sectors’ recyclability communication 

While most of the questions in the survey are the same as last year, there are some new ones, such as how well different industry sectors are communicating the recyclability of their products. 

It is clear that consumers value information as highly as they do sustainability, since three out of four respondents find it important that manufacturers inform about a product’s recycled content and recyclability. 

Food, fashion and electronics top the list 

Although none of the industry sectors listed receive a stellar review from the respondents regarding their recyclability communication, the food industry is at the top, with 56 percent of consumers expressing a positive perception of the sector’s performance. The food industry is followed by the fashion and electronics industries, at 50 and 48 percent respectively. 

It’s interesting to find the fashion industry among the top three, since this sector is often heavily scrutinized and criticized for its sustainability efforts. 

Furniture, sports equipment and automotive at the bottom 

At the bottom of the list, we find the furniture industry; 31 percent of consumers say this sector is doing a good job at informing about product recyclability. 

Among the bottom three are also the sports and leisure equipment industry at 37 percent, and the automotive industry at 38 percent. The automotive industry also receives the highest share of respondents saying that the sector is bad at communicating the recyclability of its products – 32 percent. 

Clearly, there is some communication work to be done here, along with continued efforts to design and manufacture for circularity.