During lockdown, Beyond the Box has researched into how people feel about sustainability and being ‘greener’ during the quarantine. The results show that Brits want to be more sustainable but the littering in our public spaces point to a different result.

Beyond The Box’s results show that 38% of adults say recycling has been more important to them during lockdown and 27% plan to prioritise recycling once lockdown is over. Potentially due to some areas temporarily pausing or delaying cardboard collections. However, 24% of people have witnessed littering in public while they’ve been on their daily walks during lockdown. This may also have something to do with public bins being emptied less often during the last few months.

This has left some innocent bystanders at a loss of what to do, with 7% of them admitting to picking up other people’s rubbish, but a larger 14% have been reluctant due to the potential of germs that may be on the litter.

On a larger scale, there has been a massively disappointing 300% rise in fly-tipping in some areas, as local rubbish tips have been closed during the majority of the lockdown.

Beyond the Box spokesperson, Andy Barnetson says: “The general public’s ambition to improve our national recycling rate is encouraging, though it’s important that we continue to do what we can to make that a reality – particularly when recycled materials play a vital role in our recovery system. Recycled paper fibres are essential if we want to create more useful materials like cardboard further down the line.

“The good news is that anecdotal evidence from local authorities indicates that the quantity of paper and cardboard received by local recycling collections has been up substantially, which is likely to be a result of spending all our time at home, along with amount of online shopping orders we have been racking up.”