If you read the side of a supermarket cling film box, it usually doesn't tell you what the film is. We think that's the wrong default. Here's the WARE film in three paragraphs, and what to do with each part of it when you're done.
The film: polyethylene, not PVC
Most supermarket cling film is PVC — polyvinyl chloride. PVC is cheap to make and it clings beautifully, which is why it dominated the category for fifty years. The problem is what's on either end of that. Producing PVC releases chlorine compounds. Disposing of it does too. It can't be put through standard recycling streams in the UK, and burning it produces dioxins. Almost none of the 1.2 billion metres of cling film the UK throws away each year actually gets recycled.
Our film is polyethylene-based. It's the same family of plastic as a milk bottle or a sandwich bag. It doesn't cling quite as aggressively as PVC — that's a tradeoff we accepted — but it's BPA-free, food-safe, and significantly less harmful at every stage. It's also industrially compostable, which we'll come back to.
There's no perfect cling film. Plastic is plastic. But if you're going to use one, polyethylene is the version we could put our name on.
The cardboard core
The tube inside the roll is FSC-certified cardboard. When the roll runs out, the core goes in your kerbside paper recycling. Don't put it in the soft plastics bag — it's the one part of the package that already has a clean recycling route, and it shouldn't be contaminated with film.
The film itself, end of life
Three options, ranked by what we'd actually choose.
Option one: industrial composting. Polyethylene-based film is certified industrially compostable, which means a proper composting facility — high heat, controlled conditions — will break it down. Some councils now accept soft plastics in food waste collections; most don't yet. If yours does, that's the best route.
Option two: soft plastic recycling. Most large UK supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury's, Co-op) now have soft plastic recycling bins at the front of the store. Used WARE film goes there, alongside crisp packets and bread bags. Wipe it off first.
Option three: general waste. If neither of the above is available, the film goes in the bin. It's not ideal, and we'd rather you compost or recycle it. But it doesn't release the dioxins PVC does when incinerated, which is the main reason we made the switch.
Home composting is not a route we'd recommend. The conditions in a back-garden bin aren't hot enough to break the film down on a useful timescale.
The dispenser
The dispenser itself is built to last decades, no electronics, no glued-in parts. If it ever fails, send it back and we replace the body for free — the lifetime warranty is in the box and on every receipt.
If, somewhere down the line, you genuinely don't want it any more, stainless steel goes to scrap metal recycling. Most UK councils take it at household waste recycling centres. The blade comes out with two screws.
The point of writing all this down
A surprising amount of “eco” packaging is vague on purpose. We'd rather show you what's in our film, what's in the dispenser, and what to do with each part of it. If we get any of this wrong, or your council changes its rules, tell us and we'll update the page.