Pouches are one of the most popular cat food formats, and it’s easy to see why. Just tear, pour, serve, and watch your cat demolish dinner like it’s Michelin-starred. But while they’re brilliantly convenient for us, they’re a bit of a disaster for the planet. Most cat food pouches aren’t recyclable, which means billions end up in landfill every year. Yep, billions. The good news? Packaging innovation is on the up, and some pouches (hint hint ours) are finally stepping into more sustainable territory. In this blog, we’re diving headfirst into the (admittedly unglamorous) world of cat food pouch recycling: what’s recyclable, what’s not, and how Scrumbles’ new pouches are changing the game. Let’s break it down. Not literally. Yet.

Why Most Cat Food Pouches Are a Recycling Headache

Traditional cat food pouches might be great at keeping your feline’s food fresh and tasty, but when it comes to recycling? They’re about as cooperative as a cat being given a bath. The problem is that they're usually made from layers of plastic and foil, rather than single-materials. That combination is brilliant for preserving meaty goodness, but impossible for most recycling facilities to separate and process. So, even if you want to recycle them, your local council likely won’t take them.

So What Happens to Most Pouches?

Glad you asked. Here's how the average cat food pouch meets its end:

🗑️ 1. Straight to the Bin

Yep, sadly most pouches aren't recyclable so go straight in the general waste. That means they head to landfill or incineration, where they’ll sit around for decades (if not centuries) or get burned, releasing all sorts of GHG emissions and pollutants into the air.

It’s not that cat parents don’t care. It’s just that most don’t have a better option. Until recently, neither did we.

🔄 2. The Terracycle Trap

Some pet food brands team up with Terracycle, a company that helps recycle hard-to-recycle materials, like pouches. Typically this works by ordering a box from them, filling it up with your collected pouches, and then using pre-paid UPS shipping labels to send the box of waste to them to be recycled. They do also have some drop-off points that you can drop your recycling off at.

Whilst it sounds good on paper, in reality, it's pretty far from ideal. Here's why:

• Drop-off points are limited. Unless you fancy a 30-minute detour to a garden centre, it’s not exactly convenient.
• It’s confusing. Some programmes close, open, or only accept specific brands. Brands can also set limits on how much recycling they'll take in, meaning your recycling could simply get refused. It's also a bit of a faff finding out how to actually get the pouches collected, or dropping them off.
• It’s not scalable. Terracycle handles only a tiny fraction of total waste, meaning most pouches still end up in the bin.

Basically: it’s a well-meaning idea, but not a practical one for most busy cat parents.

Introducing: Our New Recyclable Pouches 😻

We always carefully design our packaging to ensure it meets all our goals. So, when we were creating the new pouches for our food, we had three goals in mind:

1. Make them keep the food fresh and tasty (obviously).
2. Make them recyclable.
3. Make the recycling part actually doable.

So, drumroll please… 🥁

Meet our new cat food pouches, served in packaging that's not only durable enough to keep the food irresistibly tasty, but can also be recycled with your carrier bags at most supermarkets, and accepted by some kerbside collections too (depending on your local council’s rules). You can use recycle.now to find out whether you can recycle them at home, or your closest recycling point.

Here’s why our pouches are different:

• Made from mono polypropylene, a single material that means they can be recycled far more easily than those multi-layered foil ones.
• No special schemes, no faff. Just drop them off on your next shop, or if you're lucky, via your kerbside recycling. From 2027, the UK Government have announced they'll make recycling consistent and easier across councils so you can recycle your cat food pouches at any kerb.
• Designed to reduce landfill, not add to it.

They look like a regular pouch. They act like a regular pouch. But they’ve got a greener side your cat would totally brag about if they could.

How to Recycle Our Cat Food Pouches Properly

We’ve made it simple. Here’s what to do:

1. Empty the pouch. (Your cat will probably do most of the work for you.)

2. Give it a quick rinse. Doesn’t have to sparkle, just no chunky bits please.

3. Until 2027 Check your local council rules. Some do collect flexible plastics kerbside, you can double-check via Recycle Now's checker.

4. If not, take it to your local supermarket or Pets at Home. Most major supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-op, etc.) now have dedicated bins for flexible plastics – including pouches.

Pop it in with your old bread bags and shopping bags, and voilà, that's one less pouch in landfill.

But Wait… Isn’t Plastic Still Bad?

Fair question. If there was a packaging-version of Marvel, “Plastic” would absolutely be the bad guy, and not without reason. But when it comes to packaging, the truth isn’t quite so black and white (or should we say, green and grey?). Plastic can absolutely be problematic, for example when it’s not recyclable or ends up where it shouldn’t (looking at you, floating ocean islands). But not all plastic is created equal, and when used smartly, it can actually reduce your pet food’s footprint.

Compared to tins, recyclable pouches come with some surprising wins. They’re much lighter and take up significantly less space in transport, meaning fewer trucks on the road, less fuel burned, and a lower carbon footprint overall. Some studies have shown that pouches can be up to 5 times lighter, so actually recommend them over glass or steel alternatives. Plastic pouches are also less intensive to produce, and require significantly less material to produce vs a rigid packaging option like tins. 

So, while plastic isn’t perfect, when it’s thoughtfully designed for recycling, collected properly, and actually recycled, it can play a role in a lower-impact future. We also understand that every cat parent has their own preferences, which is why we offer both recyclable tins and recyclable pouches, so you can choose what works best for you (and your furry overlord).

Why This All Matters

In the UK alone, pet owners go through millions of food pouches every week. That’s a whole lot of waste, and a whole lot of landfill. Here's the stats on why we want to avoid our packaging ever ending up in landfill:

• Landfill sites are the second most used waste treatment in the UK, with 23% of UK's waste sent there in 2020
• Most landfill sites are known as "open" systems, meaning the waste they create can easily leach into waterways or escape into the atmosphere
• Open waste landfill sites generate 20% of human-created methane emissions, and 13.6 million tonnes of CO2 in the UK
  
• There are 500 landfill sites i the UK, mainly near full-capacity, and 5% of our waste is exported to other countries (making us the third highest exporter)

The Recyclable Recap

• Most cat food pouches? Not recyclable.
• Our new pouches? 100% recyclable.
• Where? At most UK supermarkets or via some kerbside collections.
• How? Rinse. Drop. Done.
• Why? Because tasty food shouldn’t leave a nasty footprint.

Ready to feed your cat something truly feel-good?

Explore our brand new range of cat food pouches today and help us clean up dinner time, one recyclable pouch at a time. Here's why we think you'll BOTH love them:

• 100% Recyclable Pouches: made with a mono-material, you can recycle them with your carrier bags or some kerbside
• No Added Sugar: Yes! Most cat food pouches have added sugar, not only bad for teeth, but tums too.
• 80%+ Meat: Packed into every succulent meat or fish chunk
• All-Natural: Just wholesome, tasty ingredients, not artificial nonsense.
• Unmatched Choice: Available in pâté, jelly and gravy, with 6 different tasty flavours to choose from.
• For All Cats: Every kitty can tuck in from 8 weeks plus to golden oldies

Commonly Asked Questions:

Q. Can you put cat food pouches in recycling?

A. Not most of them, but yes, ours! Traditional cat food pouches are often made from multiple layers of plastic and foil, which makes them unsuitable for household recycling bins. These layers can’t be easily separated by recycling machines, so most end up in landfill. But Scrumbles pouches? They’re made from mono-material plastic, designed to be recycled either at your local kerbside (where available) or via supermarket soft plastic bins. Just rinse, drop, and done—no faff, no guesswork.

Q. Can I recycle cat food pouches at Tesco?

A. You sure can, even if you didn’t buy them there! Tesco has drop-off bins for all soft plastics (including pet food pouches, bread bags, crisp wrappers, etc.) at their large UK stores.

Q. Where can you recycle cat food pouches?

Here are some of the UK supermarkets and Pet stores that recycle cat food pouches:

• Pets at Home – Accepts soft plastics in every store

• Tesco – Soft plastic bins in all large stores for pet pouches and more

• Sainsbury’s – Accepts soft plastics in every store

• Co‑op – Will take third-party soft plastics (check your local one)

• M&S – Collects any plastic via their front-of-store units

• Aldi – Front-store collections with full transparency on what actually gets recycled

Other major retailers like Asda, Waitrose, Lidl, and Iceland are gradually rolling out similar schemes, so worth keeping an eye on their recycling pages

Whilst you're here, why not read:

1. How many pouches should I feed my cat
2. The ultimutt guide to cat food