This article was commissioned by Missoma on upcycling in fashion.

An ongoing sustainability goal of ours is to move towards circularity. Our first step on this journey is upcycling, from the Deadstock Project to this study. In order to help us and other brands understand upcycling more, we wanted to commission independent research on the topic. Read on to discover the findings.

Recycling. There’s more to it than just separating your cardboard. And while, globally, we’ve been making a conscious effort to recycle things like paper, cans and glass for a number of years, some items still remain quite difficult to recycle in some places.

Disposing of electronics, for example, can be tricky in some places. It can be the same with clothing, old makeup and furniture. But over recent years, there’s been a surge in “upcycling.” This is the process of taking something old that might otherwise be thrown away and giving it a bit of a makeover, a brand new lease of life and keeping it (or even selling it on). We’re fascinated with recycling and upcycling and we wanted to know more about the sorts of things we’re giving a new lease of life too. So we polled 2,000+ people in the UK and crunched some search trends numbers to bring you a global round up of upcycling and recycling statistics for 2023. Here’s what we found.

 

The Quick Edition— Key Statistics

If you’re looking for a summary of the most important findings, they’re right here, with more detail within:

- Almost 1 in 10 people in the UK hasn’t recycled or upcycled a single item in the past year

- The most commonly recycled item in the UK is paper/cardboard, with 61.92% of over 16s having recycled this over the last year

- Over half (54%) have recycled or upcycled clothing in the last year

- Those in Greater London are the least likely to have recycled many different types of items over the last year

 

What Do We Recycle?

To find out what people are recycling, we polled 2,017 people in May 2023 using market research provider Censuswide.

We asked: Which of the following items have you upcycled or recycled in the past year? (check all that apply)

- Cardboard or paper

- Glass bottles or jars

- Cans or tins

- Old clothing

- Old electronics

- Old furniture

- Old jewellery

- NA — I haven’t recycled or upcycled any items in the last year

- Other

 

We found:

Item	% of people in the UK who’ve recycled or upcycled this in the past year
Cardboard or paper	61.92%
Glass bottles or jars	60.19%
Cans or tins	59.49%
Old clothing	54.19%
Old electronics	27.96%
Old furniture	24.29%
Old jewellery	10.96%
N/A – I haven't recycled or upcycled any items in the last year	9.27%
Other	0.55%

 

 

We’re going to delve into some statistics for each type of recycling shortly, but first we want to look at the proportion of people who haven’t recycled or upcycled any items at all in the last year in the UK.

 

How Many People DON’T Recycle?

With a multitude of different bins for household waste and each council with a schedule to collect, recycling the likes of glass, cardboard and cans is really simple in the UK. And we can see from our data that people are getting more creative too and finding ways to upcycle or recycle electricals, furniture and clothing.

But just about 1 in 10 people in the UK says they haven’t recycled a single item in the last 12 months.

We wanted to understand whether this is more prevalent at specific age ranges or within different parts of the UK.

So we dug into the data.

When we look at age specific breakdowns here:

 

Age Range	% who have not recycled anything in the past year
16 to 24	7.09
25 to 34	7.91
35 to 44	8.75
45 to 54	10.54
55+	10.37

 

 

Younger people are much less likely to not recycle or upcycle than older people, according to the statistics from our 2023 recycling survey.

Does gender affect things?

 

Gender	% who have not recycled anything in the past year
Male	8.89
Female	9.63

 

Women are slightly more likely to admit to not having recycled anything in the past year. 

But we saw far greater variations in this response not when we broke responses down by age and gender, but instead by region of the UK.

 

Region	% who have not recycled anything in the past year
East of England	4.66
Greater London	8.61
East Midlands	9.40
West Midlands	9.60
North East	8.14
North West	9.69
Northern Ireland	10.71
Scotland	11.72
South East	13.72
South West	7.47
Wales	9.18
Yorkshire and the Humber	7.14

 

We can see remarkable variations here in the likelihood of someone admitting to not having recycled or upcycled anything in the last year.

At the lower end, fewer than 1 in 20 people (4.66%) in the East of England admit this. Meanwhile, in the South East, 13.72% haven’t recycled anything in the last year.

So let’s dive in and look at the statistics around specific types of recycling.

 

Paper and Card Recycling Statistics

Some quick facts on paper and card recycling according to our survey:

- 61.92% of people in the UK have recycled paper or card over the last year.

- This figure is highest amongst the over 55s (75.6%)

- It’s lowest amongst the 16 to 24s (43.28%)

- More than three quarters of those in the South West (76.44%) have recycled paper or card in the last year

- At the opposite end of the scale, just 53.18% of those in London say the same

Paper and card is, based on our research, the most commonly recycled item. But there are steep variations in terms of how many people have recycled it in the last year from region to region in particular.

You can see all of the numbers below.

 

Group	% who have recycled paper or cardboard in the past year
All	61.92%
Gender
Male	58.32%
Female	65.32%
Age
16 - 24	43.28%
25 - 34	48.87%
35 - 44	56.56%
45 - 54	65.18%
55+	75.46%
Region
East of England	66.84%
Greater London	53.18%
East Midlands	57.05%
West Midlands	63.28%
North East	55.81%
North West	62.11%
Northern Ireland	62.50%
Scotland	57.93%
South East	61.73%
South West	76.44%
Wales	63.27%
Yorkshire and the Humber	63.69%

 

Glass Bottles and Jars Recycling Statistics

Just behind card and paper were glass bottles/jars. 60.19% of people said they had recycled or upcycled these items in the last year.

But again we saw some variation:

- Women are quite considerably likelier to have recycled or upcycled glass in the last year (64.07% of women compared with 56.08% of men)

- Much like with paper and glass, we see that the older people are, the likelier they are to have upcycled or recycled glass bottles/jars over the last year

- Less than half of those in Greater London have recycled or upcycled glass in the last year, in stark contrast with the other end of the scale — the South West, where 70% have

 

Group	% who have recycled glass bottles or jars in the past year
All	60.19%
Gender
Male	56.08%
Female	64.07%
Age
16 - 24	44.03%
25 - 34	46.61%
35 - 44	55.63%
45 - 54	63.58%
55+	72.70%
Region
East of England	65.28%
Greater London	49.44%
East Midlands	54.36%
West Midlands	63.28%
North East	50.00%
North West	61.67%
Northern Ireland	53.57%
Scotland	58.62%
South East	60.29%
South West	70.11%
Wales	67.35%
Yorkshire and the Humber	65.48%

 

Cans and Tins Recycling Statistics

Another common household item that is easily recycled across the country — cans and tins. Recycling and upcycling statistics for these items follow a similar pattern to the above in some ways:

- Over half of the overall population (59.49%) have recycled or upcycled cans and tins in the last year

- Again, the older someone is, the likelier they are to have done so

- London is again the area in which people are least likely to have recycled or upcycled tins and cans in the last year (45.32%)

- The South West is again the area where people are most likely to have (70.11%)

Group	% who have recycled cans or tins in the past year
All	59.49%
Gender
Male	58.43%
Female	60.50%
Age
16 - 24	42.54%
25 - 34	48.87%
35 - 44	55.94%
45 - 54	61.98%
55+	70.87%
Region
East of England	63.73%
Greater London	45.32%
East Midlands	61.74%
West Midlands	58.19%
North East	56.98%
North West	59.47%
Northern Ireland	60.71%
Scotland	56.55%
South East	59.93%
South West	70.11%
Wales	68.37%
Yorkshire and the Humber	63.10%

 

Clothing Recycling Statistics

This is where things stop following the exact pattern of the above. The main thing with clothing and all the items that follow is that they’re typically not recycled as easily. In other words, you don’t have a bin for them at home and there’s no a standard scheduled council bin collection schedule for this specific type of item.

With clothing, we’ll talk later about trends in people looking to upcycle and give their clothing a new lease of life. But in terms of people who have recycled or upcycled old clothing in any way at all over the last year, it’s still a majority.

- 54.19% of people have recycled or upcycled clothing in the last year

- Women (60.31%) are notably more likely to do so than men (47.70%)

- The oldest age group, the 55+, are the most likely to do so (63.39%)

- Regionally, it’s those in Greater London again who are the least likely to upcycle or recycle clothing (47.94%)

- Those in Wales are the most likely to recycle or upcycle clothing (61.22%)

Group	% who have recycled or upcycled old clothing in the past year
All	54.19
Gender
Male	47.70%
Female	60.31%
Age
16 - 24	45.15%
25 - 34	47.46%
35 - 44	53.13%
45 - 54	48.24%
55+	63.39%
Region
East of England	52.85%
Greater London	47.94%
East Midlands	53.02%
West Midlands	50.28%
North East	51.16%
North West	56.39%
Northern Ireland	55.36%
Scotland	55.86%
South East	55.60%
South West	59.77%
Wales	61.22%
Yorkshire and the Humber	55.36%

 

Electronics Recycling Statistics

Electronics can be difficult to recycle. And as “upcycling” them would often require some electrical expertise as opposed to just a creative flair, it’s perhaps no real surprise that little over a quarter of the population has recycled or upcycled an electrical item over the last year.

Some other facts:

- Men are much likelier than women (31.87% vs 24.28%) to recycle or upcycle old electronics

- Those in London are again the least likely (26.22%)

- Those in the South West are again the most likely, with almost a third doing so in the last year

 

Group	% who have recycled or upcycled electricals in the past year
All	27.96%
Gender
Male	31.87%
Female	24.28%
Age
16 - 24	23.88%
25 - 34	27.40%
35 - 44	28.13%
45 - 54	27.48%
55+	29.79%
Region
East of England	29.02%
Greater London	26.22%
East Midlands	30.20%
West Midlands	26.55%
North East	27.91%
North West	29.52%
Northern Ireland	26.79%
Scotland	26.21%
South East	27.44%
South West	32.18%
Wales	29.59%
Yorkshire and the Humber	24.40%

 

Furniture Upcycling and Recycling Statistics

Not only is furniture upcycling something of a social media sensation, some people are building businesses out of it. But make no mistake — it’s still quite the minority engaging in recycling or upcycling furniture, with just under a quarter in the last year. Of course, another reason for this relatively low overall number could be that big items like furniture are things are tend to replace less frequently anyway. But let’s look at the statistics:

- Just under a quarter of people in the UK have upcycled or recycled furniture in the last year

- It’s the 25 to 34 year olds most likely to do so (31.92%)

- Unlike other items, Londoners are not the least likely to recycle or upcycle furniture — 26.22% (so that’s over the average) have done so

- The area where people are least likely to is Scotland (16.55%)

- The area where people most recycle or upcycle furniture is Northern Ireland (32.14%) 

 

Group	% who have recycled or upcycled old furniture in the past year
All	24.29%
Gender
Male	22.47%
Female	26.01%
Age
16 - 24	21.64%
25 - 34	31.92%
35 - 44	26.25%
45 - 54	21.09%
55+	22.18%
Region
East of England	20.73%
Greater London	26.22%
East Midlands	21.48%
West Midlands	24.86%
North East	26.74%
North West	22.03%
Northern Ireland	32.14%
Scotland	16.55%
South East	24.91%
South West	24.71%
Wales	31.63%
Yorkshire and the Humber	27.38%

 

 

Jewellery Upcycling and Recycling Statistics

Are many of us recycling or upcycling our old jewellery? Now this is a particularly important area for us, given our passion for sustainable jewellery

According to our statistics:

- Just over 1 in 10 people in the UK has upcycled or recycled their jewellery in the last year

- Those aged 16 to 44 are almost twice as likely as those aged 45 and over to recycle or upcycle jewellery, making this the only area where younger people fared so much better in the recycling stakes

- In the North East, little over 1 in 20 (5.81%) have recycled or upcycled jewellery in the last year

- At the opposite end of the scale, 14.29% of people in Northern Ireland have

 

Group	% who have recycled or upcycled old jewellery in the past year
All	10.96%
Gender
Male	10.01%
Female	11.85%
Age
16 - 24	14.18%
25 - 34	14.69%
35 - 44	14.38%
45 - 54	7.03%
55+	8.27%
Region
East of England	12.44%
Greater London	10.86%
East Midlands	11.41%
West Midlands	12.99%
North East	5.81%
North West	12.78%
Northern Ireland	14.29%
Scotland	8.97%
South East	10.83%
South West	9.77%
Wales	10.20%
Yorkshire and the Humber	9.52%

 

Recycling Help in Search

A great way to gain a little insight into recycling and upcycling trends is to look at what people are Googling on the topic. As much as we all rush off to Google to find a hotel, look up health symptoms or ask for photos of celebs, so too (it turns out) we head there for help with our recycling.

We turn to Google in our thousands for ideas and inspiration for giving a new lease of life to old items. So we took a look, using kwfinder.com, at the estimated number of searches each month in Google across the USA, UK, Australia and Canada, for various queries relating to recycling.

We looked up the number of searches for each of the following queries related to recycling:

- Recycle mobile phones (“Recycle cell phones” in US & Canada)

- Recycle furniture

- Recycle coffee pods

- Recycle books

- Recycle lightbulbs

- Recycle clothes

- Recycled electronics

- Recycle CDs

We looked up monthly search volumes from January 2020 to March 2023.

We then added up each month in 2020, 2021 and 2022 to give us totals for the years. Our findings are outlined below.

 

UK Recycling Related Searches

In the UK, the general trend is one of fewer searches per year since 2020.  A few potential reasons for this:

- As people become more recycling savvy they have less need to look for information on how to do it

- People were spending more time at home in 2020 (Covid lockdowns) and therefore possibly clearing things out and doing more home renovation projects, leading to more need to search for things like this

The trend of fewer searches per year is bucked for coffee pods. 27800 searches were made in 2022 in the UK for “recycle coffee pods.”

 

Query	Searches in Google UK 2020	2021	2022
Recycle mobile phones	18834	15633	15657
Recycle furniture	31700	28500	22100
Recycle coffee pods	17280	21600	27800
Recycle books	30500	32200	26500
Recycle lightbulbs	12950	13060	12030
Recycle clothes	91200	70100	51500
Recycle electronics	7525	5701	5293
Recycle CDs	11940	10460	8820

 

USA Recycling Related Searches

It’a a similar story in the USA, where for many of the queries we looked at, searches declined over the last few years.

The most notable query that bucks this trend in the USA is “recycle clothes” which saw 106,500 searches in 2022, compared with 86,700 on 2020.

 

Query	Searches in Google USA 2020	2021	2022
Recycle cell phones	36200	29500	28800
Recycle furniture	27800	23400	23400
Recycle coffee pods	5820	5420	5510
Recycle books	44300	41900	41200
Recycle lightbulbs	37200	30500	33800
Recycle clothes	86700	93000	106500
Recycle electronics	92196	50743	47356
Recycle CDs	24800	19400	16500

 

Canada Recycling Related Searches

Similar trends follow in Canada as in the USA (albeit with notably lower overall numbers down to a smaller population).

 

Query	Searches in Google CA 2020	2021	2022
Recycle cell phones	2460	2470	2520
Recycle furniture	5570	5490	4560
Recycle coffee pods	2110	2020	1510
Recycle books	2940	2910	2690
Recycle lightbulbs	6520	5260	5150
Recycle clothes	10440	10720	10160
Recycle electronics	10320	8398	6954
Recycle CDs	3790	3170	2500

 

Australia Recycling Related Searches

Trends are also repeated in Australia, with fewer searches for almost all of the queries we looked at with the exception of clothing once again.

 

Query	Searches in Google AU 2020	2021	2022
Recycle mobile phones	6790	6590	5620
Recycle furniture	9390	7750	8020
Recycle coffee pods	9400	7860	7360
Recycle books	4070	4620	3920
Recycle lightbulbs	3370	3930	3810
Recycle clothes	17700	20700	22200
Recycle electronics	13500	12780	13500
Recycle CDs	6260	5060	5150

 

Searches in these four English speaking nations weighted by population

But of course, the number of searches made for any given query in any given country in Google is tied a lot to the population of that country.

So we took the data we had and added together 2020, 2021 and 2022 figures and then weighted this total by population, so we can see how many searches over the last 3 years in total there have been per 1,000 people in the population.

We found:

- Interest in recycling queries like these is generally significantly higher in Australia and the UK and in the USA and Canada

- When we looked up “recycle clothing” and weighted these searches against population, the UK saw 1,314 searches per million people in the population in 20, 21 and 22 combined, compared with just 495 in Australia, 385 in the USA and 226 in Canada

- The clothes variant keyword was the one with the highest searches per million in all of the four countries we looked at. This was followed by furniture.

Here’s the data:

	Searches per million people in the population in Google in that specific country in 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined
Query	UK	US	Canada	Australia
Recycle mobile phones (cell phones for US & Canada)	738	285	197	745
Recycle furniture	1212	225	414	987
Recycle coffee pods	982	51	149	965
Recycle books	1314	385	226	495
Recycle light bulbs	560	307	449	436
Recycle clothes	3135	865	830	2376
Recycle electronics	273	575	680	1560
Recycle CDs	460	183	251	646

 

 

 

Upcycling Trends in 2024 - Insagram

Upcycling has become not only a hobby, but a business for many. And there are countless communities online where people share their projects, look for ideas and get inspiration for upcycling projects

Some fast facts (as of January 2024):

- There are 5.6 million posts on Instagram using the hashtag #upcycling

- There are 443,000 posts with the hashtag #upcyclingfashion

- There are 105,000 posts with the hashtag #upcyclingfurniture

- There are a further 137,700 with #upcyclingideas

- Youtube’s most viewed video on the topic of upcycling has been seen more than 61 million times (up from 56 million times when we first checked in May 2023. In other words, that video is averaging more than 600,00 views every single month).

 

A New Lease of Life?

Upcycling and recycling obviously have benefits for the environment. But with the former in particular, giving a new lease of life to an old or dated piece of furniture, clothing or jewellery is also incredibly fulfilling.

We’re absolutely thrilled to see trends that suggest people are recycling as part of their daily habits now. And we’re not going to lie, checking out people’s upcycling projects on Instagram is addictive.