Tesco and Sainsbury’s have been accused of misleading their customers over their front-of-store recycling schemes.

The accusation comes after an investigation found that most soft plastic returned to stores was burned.

The Everyday Plastic campaign group and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA UK) tracked 40 bundles of soft plastic waste – such as single-use bags, films and wrapping – through supermarket take-back schemes across England.

Shoppers can drop off soft plastic packaging – which cannot currently be recycled through kerbside collections – at the stores so they can be recycled by the retail giants instead.

But Everyday Plastic said volunteers placed Apple tracking devices in 40 bundles of plastic packaging that were then dropped at Sainsbury’s and Tesco collection points across England.

The bundles were tracked after they left the stores from July 2023 to February 2024 and collectively travelled more than 25,000km across the UK and overseas, the campaigners said.

Out of the trackers known to have reached a final destination, seven were found to have been turned into fuel pellets, which are commonly used by industry such as in cement kilns.

Five were burned for energy, four were downcycled into lower value plastic products overseas, mostly in Turkey, and just one was downcycled in the UK, the investigators said.

Eight of the tracked bundles were found to have been sent overseas and 70% of the bundles that reached a known destination were burned for energy, not recycled.

Alison Colclough, research director at Everyday Plastic, said the investigation reveals the “hard truth” about the supermarket recycling schemes.

“The take-back schemes are being presented as a solution, which is diverting attention from the main issue that can’t be overlooked: far too much unnecessary plastic packaging is being produced,” she said.

The campaigners said they focused on Tesco and Sainsbury’s due to their dominant market share and the large number of collection points they had.

Sainsbury’s said it has recently improved its signage to help encourage more customers to recycle soft plastic waste in its stores, including which items are accepted and the condition they should ideally be in to allow the supermarket to recycle them.

A spokesperson said: “We’re always seeking ways to positively manage the end of life of our packaging.

“We collect a small volume of flexible plastic overall in-store. The majority is in good condition and so is recycled.

“However, when materials are soiled or damaged, then they may need to be converted for energy, which is managed by our supplier. Feedback is important to us and we’d welcome any suggestions on how we can improve our efforts in this area.”

Tesco said that while the investigation found materials were sent to an accredited processing site in Turkey, this was a supplier error as the supermarket’s materials should not have been sent to that location.

A spokesperson said: “We have a clear plan to remove packaging wherever possible and reducing, reusing and recycling it where we can’t.

“We work hard to recycle the materials we collect, for example our Bags for Life, and in some cases we are even able to use it for projects such as fruit and vegetable planters donated to schools or park benches donated to the NHS.

“Where it is not possible to recycle the collected plastic, we put it to alternative uses to avoid these materials going to landfill, for example using it for energy recovery.

“We know there is a lot more progress to be made, and the infrastructure to recycle soft plastics at scale in the UK and the EU still has a way to go.”