Old Trafford, home to Manchester United, opens the season in a league of its own, topping local authorities, with football clubs, that have the highest household recycling rates.
Packaging supplier BagKraft ranked all 20 clubs in the 2026/27 Premier League using the household waste recycling rate of the local authority containing each club’s stadium and found that Trafford Council recycles 57.5% of household waste.
Liverpool and Everton are in last place, with Liverpool City Council, which contains both Anfield and Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium, recording a rate of just 17.9%.
The analysis found that just four clubs beat the average household recycling rate in England of 43.7%.
Metal packaging industry associations and charities, including Alupro and Every Can Counts, run regular campaigns encouraging consumers to easily recycle their metal packaging household waste, notching up some success. Canmakers, such as Ball Corporation and ORG Technology also support recycling initiatives at football clubs in the UK and in their home countries.
BagKraft said: “If recycling decided Champions League qualification, Manchester United, Hull City, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and Manchester City would make the top five.”
It added that Aston Villa would join Liverpool and Everton in facing “relegation”, adding: “Birmingham City Council’s recycling rate of 20.3% was the third-lowest in England.”
Commenting on the 40% gap between the top and bottom of the table, BagKraft said: “Trafford’s recycling rate more than three times Liverpool’s.”
Those moving up the league table included Islington, home to Arsenal – currently at the top of actual Premier League rankings – and Hammersmith & Fulham councils, home to Chelsea and Fulham clubs. The London clubs achieved 2.6% increases in recycling rates at their respective local authorities.
Leeds improved by 2.0 percentage points and Sunderland by 1.3%.
The figures were obtained from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)’s local authority collected waste management dataset covering April 2024 to March 2025. Year-on-year figures were compared with 2023/4 figures.
Where two or more clubs fall within the same local authority, said BagKraft, clubs were assigned the same rate, as the analysis compared recycling performance of stadium locations, and not the environmental record of the Premier League football clubs.
Premier League recycling table
| Position | Club | Local authority | Recycling rate | YoY change |
| 1 | Manchester United | Trafford | 57.5% | -0.9pp |
| 2 | Hull City | Kingston upon Hull | 47.2% | +0.7pp |
| 3 | Nottingham Forest | Rushcliffe | 45.5% | -1.9pp |
| 4 | AFC Bournemouth | Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | 43.9% | -2.3pp |
| UK average recycling rate: 43.7% | ||||
| 5 | Manchester City | Manchester | 38.9% | -0.7pp |
| 6 | Leeds United | Leeds | 37.3% | +2.0pp |
| 7 | Brentford | Hounslow | 36.5% | -0.4pp |
| 8 | Crystal Palace | Croydon | 36.3% | -3.5pp |
| 9 | Ipswich Town | Ipswich | 33.5% | -0.2pp |
| 10 | Arsenal | Islington | 32.9% | +2.6pp |
| 11 | Coventry City | Coventry | 32.0% | -2.2pp |
| 12 | Sunderland | Sunderland | 31.1% | +1.3pp |
| =13 | Chelsea | Hammersmith & Fulham | 30.2% | +2.6pp |
| =13 | Fulham | Hammersmith & Fulham | 30.2% | +2.6pp |
| 15 | Tottenham Hotspur | Haringey | 28.6% | +0.1pp |
| 16 | Brighton & Hove Albion | Brighton & Hove | 27.7% | +0.3pp |
| 17 | Newcastle United | Newcastle upon Tyne | 25.9% | +0.1pp |
| 18 | Aston Villa | Birmingham | 20.3% | -2.4pp |
| =19 | Everton | Liverpool | 17.9% | -1.3pp |
| =19 | Liverpool | Liverpool | 17.9% | -1.3pp |
