The simple answer is that bubble wrap is very difficult to recycle. It can not be recycled at the kerbside and it is not financially viable to recycle it. It’s an incredibly handy material for keeping items safe in transit, but terrible for the environment and hard to recycle efficiently.
That being said, as with anything, it technically can be recycled if taken to the right place. That is a soft plastic recycling collection point at a supermarket. Some local household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) often have a designated point for this too.
You can find more information about Tesco’s soft plastic recycling scheme here.
Do not, under any circumstances, place this in your kerbside recycling bin unless your local authority is part of a scheme. While there are upcoming rules to get councils to collect soft plastics, we are not there yet. Doing so will cause issues further down the line