When we first launched our melt and pour candle refills, we chose a beautiful kraft paper pouch with a compostable lining. Standing in the studio looking at them, I was really proud. We were helping people reuse their old jars, and the packaging felt completely right; earthy, simple, and “plastic” free.

But over the last year, I’ve had a knot in my stomach.

I’ve been telling you all that our pouches are the “eco friendly” choice. But the more I looked into the UK’s recycling systems, the more I realised that sustainability is full of easy answers, well, until you look closely.

I’ve spent months falling down the rabbit hole of carbon footprints, UK waste collections, and recycling rates. What I found completely changed how I look at sustainable packaging, and I want to share it with you so you know exactly why we are making the choices we make.

What we’ve been questioning

When you’re trying to create a zero waste home, the first thing you usually think about is carbon emissions. Naturally, I assumed that paper is always better for the planet than plastic.

To test this, we compared our current paper pouch to the kind of recyclable plastic pouch a lot of brands use. Because carbon footprints fluctuate depending on the factory’s energy grid and the raw materials used, we use industry standard Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) ranges rather than exact numbers.

Based on these models, the numbers completely surprised me. A standard recyclable plastic pouch creates around 30g to 50g of carbon emissions to produce. Our current compostable paper one? About 25g to 45g.

The difference between the two materials is basically the same as boiling your kettle for a cup of tea a few times. Because our pouches are incredibly lightweight, just 13 grams, switching materials wouldn’t actually reduce our carbon impact at all.

Are compostable pouches actually sustainable?

This is the part I found hardest to accept. Our pouches have a compostable lining, which sounds brilliant.

But here in the UK and Ireland, things aren’t that straight forward and are most dependent on your local council. If you don’t have access to proper industrial composting (like a council food waste bin), and that pouch ends up in your normal black bin, it goes straight to a landfill.

Landfills are packed so tightly there is almost no oxygen. When natural materials like paper sit in those conditions, they don’t turn into lovely soil. They break down incredibly slowly and release methane; a greenhouse gas that is much, much worse for the climate than carbon dioxide.

Suddenly, “compostable” didn’t sound like a magic word anymore.

So, is recyclable plastic actually better?

You’ve probably seen those soft plastic recycling bins popping up at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, the Co-op and many other locations. This made me wonder if we should just switch to a single material (mono) plastic pouch so you could drop them off with your carrier bags.

But here is the catch with the UK’s soft plastic recycling: the actual recycling rates are still incredibly low. A lot of the plastic collected doesn’t get turned into new packaging. Instead, it gets downcycled, incinerated, or shipped overseas.

On top of that, plastic comes from fossil fuels. It stays in the environment for centuries and eventually breaks down into microplastics. Also, because you need to indirectly heat up our melt and pour refills to use them, I feel much safer sticking with our heat resistant paper rather than moving to thin plastic.

It felt like an impossible choice: stick with paper and risk methane in a landfill, or move to plastic and risk microplastics in our oceans.

The one thing everyone overlooks

After weeks of stressing over a 13 gram pouch, I realised I was missing the entire point.

The biggest environmental problem isn’t the pouch. It’s the heavy glass candle jar. Making just one brand new glass candle jar creates roughly 300g to 400g of carbon emissions; and that’s before it’s even shipped to you.

When you choose a candle refill instead of buying a brand new candle, you are cutting the total environmental impact by a huge amount. That is a real win.

Yes, we also offer solid refill blocks which use even less packaging, and they are brilliant if you have the exact right size jar. But for all those gorgeous, odd shaped pots and glasses you’ve saved in your cupboards? The melt and pour pouch is the only thing that gives you the flexibility to actually reuse them.

Why we aren’t changing our packaging (yet)

You see brands relaunching with “100% recyclable” packaging all the time. It looks fantastic on Instagram. But jumping from paper to plastic just to use a trendy marketing buzzword feels completely wrong to me. It doesn’t solve the waste problem; it just changes the type of rubbish we leave behind.

So, we are keeping our kraft paper pouches for now.

I know they aren’t perfect, and I’d rather be completely honest with you about that than pretend we’ve solved the global waste crisis.

Sustainability shouldn’t be a greenwashing trick. We are going to keep watching the UK’s recycling infrastructure. The minute we find a truly better option that actually works in the real world, not just on paper, we will make the change.

Until then, the absolute best thing you can do for the planet is exactly what you are doing right now. Don’t buy a new candle. Keep reusing the jars you already own.

I would love to know where you stand on this. Does knowing the complicated truth about recycling change how you shop? Drop a comment below and let me know.