The Package is apparently still not ‘hot’ but McDonald’s claims its food is thanks to single-use paper packaging. By David Burrows.
Once again, The Package is suffering from a spring slump as we miss out on being named not only in the Resource hot 100 but the Ends power list 100 too. A cat made the cut in the former (again) but Scotland circular economy minister Lorna Slater has slumped from number 3 to 48. She’s had a tricky year with the country’s ill-fated deposit return scheme (DRS).
The DRS has of course been delayed and Holyrood is blaming Westminster for holding things up as it dithers (surely not?) over an exemption from the internal market act. The BBC reported on Friday that the UK government is now plotting to use Scotland as a “pilot” for a UK-wide scheme. How nice of them. But those pesky Scots with their ambitious green ideas will also need to change their scheme – for example by not collecting glass and standardising the deposit and labels across the UK.
We don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Indeed, before Brexit environmental policy was mostly devolved but the various parts of the UK were all aiming at a common EU standard, so convergence rather than divergence was typically the order of the day. After (the green) Brexit, what the UK Government perhaps didn’t bargain for is that ‘taking back control’ doesn’t just apply to the UK as a whole, it also applies to the devolved administrations. “Trying to put a lid on regulatory divergence via the UK’s own internal market act was always likely to be tricky,” Chris Hilson, professor of law at the University of Reading, told me recently. The end game might involve the courts too, which will involving them referring to … EU case law.
Regrets, we have a few, but at least we can now do it our way. Or rather Rishi’s way. The DRS debate has now reached the, ahem, heights of the prime minister’s office. “If the SNP wanted to do their bit, they could reconsider their DRS,” he said last week. “It’s very clear what people have said – it will reduce choice and increase prices for consumers.” What ‘people’? Oh, the ‘people’ who are producers of drinks in these bottles and cans, he means. Business, in other words. And here is us thinking DRS is a ‘producer pays’ policy (not consumer pays), and one which is led by, er, those same businesses (through Circularity Scotland).
In for a treat(y)
But let’s not dwell on Downing Street and DRS, for there are big talks in Paris this week. It’s the second of five rounds to develop a global plastics treaty. The big play is for a plastic production reduction target. And NGOs have reached for their trump card: chemicals. Instead of entangled turtles the focus now is very much on the risks posed by the chemicals used and found in plastic. “Recycling plastic = recycling toxic chemicals” shouted Greenpeace USA in a report published last week. The 22 pages are designed to scare the life out of you. “When plastics are recycled, they contain a toxic cocktail of chemicals that makes them unfit for food-grade and other consumer uses.”
It’s more nuanced than that of course (Wrap, we are told, is furiously working on an industry reaction to Greenpeace’s report which should get to us by next month’s Package). We do have to take such simplified statements with a pinch of salt, yet it’s clear that too little is known about the cocktail of chemicals swirling around in the circular economy.
Experts and specialist NGOs have been banging this drum for years. One of them is Heather Leslie, an ecotoxicologist who previously worked at the Institute for Environmental Studies at University Amsterdam, who told me last year: “It’s a pity that there is so much focus on CO2, which isn’t toxic at all, while the actual toxic chemicals our daily lives are drenched in take a back seat.”
That chemicals have a seat at the table for the Paris talks is good news. The Scientists’ coalition for an effective plastics treaty noted in a recent briefing paper that more than 13,000 chemicals are used in plastics, of which more than 3,200 are classified as hazardous – which means they are officially recognised to be toxic, persistent or have other concerning properties. Yet, only 4% of these chemicals are regulated globally. They see the treaty as a chance to “improve transparency, phase out hazardous plastic chemicals and polymers and promote the development of non-toxic plastics or non-plastic alternatives where appropriate”.
The coalition has set up a helpdesk for negotiators at the Paris talks – and for good reason. As one of their number, Jane Muncke from the Food Packaging Forum in Switzerland, explains: “There are so few people who understand this issue. People get climate now and I guess they get biodiversity but chemicals is a whole different beast. Just saying the word scares people off.”
Indeed, environmental NGOs had been wary of playing the chemicals card, which could see consumers give up on recycling plastic. But in September, Zero Waste Europe together with the Health and Environment Alliance, CHEM Trust and ClientEarth launched a new campaign. “Harmful chemicals in recycled #FoodContactMaterials can put the #CircularEconomy and our health at risk,” they tweeted, with an infographic entitled ‘Misconceptions about food contact materials’. Their use of the phrase “toxic recycling” was deliberately emotive.
Charlotte Moore from Sigwatch, which tracks NGO activity, says there has been a “gradual uptick” in interest in the topic over the past few years but current attention has “stabilised at low-to-moderate levels”. That may change after next week’s talks.
Papering over the cracks
Recent actions on toxic chemicals in packaging have included calls for bans on the use of the chemicals in food packaging in Canada, France, and the US, according to Sigwatch. Groups have also called for labels on packaging to indicate the presence of PFAS (per and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances, which are in group of heavies called forever chemicals). Brands which have been called out for toxic chemicals in packaging include Nestlé, Burger King, KFC and McDonald’s. Some have begun setting voluntary targets to eliminate certain chemicals from their supply chains but the message from the food industry appears to be ‘Problem? What problem?’
In a recent webinar run by the Institute of Food Science and Technology chemicals were not even on the agenda for a session focused specifically on food packaging regulatory challenges, including food contact materials.
Regulators in the EU are beginning to move but it’s taking time. EFSA has recently recommended setting a threshold of 0.2 nanograms of bisphenol-A (BPA, another forever chemical) per kilogram of body weight per day, down from a temporary limit of 4 micrograms set in 2015, on the back of new data on the substance’s health impacts. BPA is widely used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics and in epoxy resins with a wide range of consumer and industrial uses, including water bottles and the linings of food tins.
Ah, but what about paper, I hear you say? That ‘good’ disposable option versus the ‘bad’ plastic one. Sorry to pee on paper’s parade but according to environmental charity Fidra “repeated studies” have found high levels of harmful and persistent chemicals, PFAS, in moulded fibre compostable food packaging – the type quickly replacing plastic across the UK high-street.
Fidra has found high levels of potentially toxic chemicals in supermarket packaging as well as pizza boxes, takeaway bags and food boxes from brands including Caffè Nero, Costa, Dominos, Greggs, Pizza Hut, Pret a Manger and Starbucks. Its research revealed significant levels of PFAS present in 90% of food packaging tested. “As we strive to reduce our reliance on single-use plastic, are we simply swapping a visible pollutant for a longer-lasting, more toxic chemical alternative?” it wonders.
Whichever way we turn there are problems. “In today’s world, there are no perfect choices,” wrote Susan Freinkel in her book Plastic: a toxic love story in a section titled ‘closing the loop’. “[A]ll we can do is be aware of the trade-offs.” Which brings us to the UN report on plastic published in the run-up to the treaty talks. The report suggests swapping out 17% of “short-lived products” which include wrappers, sachets and takeaway items, with “sustainable substitutes”. Paper can save on emissions in some cases, the report’s authors noted, but not in others. Life cycle assessments comparing materials can produce confusing results but this passage was telling. “[…] comprehensive assessments including environmental and socio-economic indicators often demonstrate that not all alternatives to plastic lead to better outcomes. Usually, the better alternatives are reusable products, regardless of their material.”
Cold shoulder
Greenpeace’s report is full of the problems facing us. The solutions come in the form of a short treaty wish-list which includes “immediate reductions in plastic production” and a shift to refill and reuse-based economies. France is of course one of those pushing hardest on this, with anti-waste laws introduced in January forcing foodservice companies to use reusable containers when people are dining in. President Emmanuel Macro tweeted a picture of some of the new McDonald’s packaging, to which the EPPA (European paper packaging alliance) replied: “Mr President, did you know that these reusable plastic packaging generate 2.8 times more CO2 and use 3.4 times more water than paper-based packaging? Renewable and recyclable paper packaging is better for the environment.”
The EU is now looking to follow France’s lead which has led to intense lobbying – with McDonald’s leading the charge (see last month’s Package). In fact, it’s what the likes of DeSmog are reporting as “the largest-scale lobbying effort [some insiders] have ever witnessed in the European Parliament”. Floor Uitterhoeve, director for market sustainability in Europe for the fast food giant, recently explained the company’s sustainable approach to packaging to Packaging Europe. We didn’t get beyond the first response which explained how its packaging “is helping to serve hot and freshly prepared food quickly and safely to customers”. “Hot food” in a McDonald’s? Surely they mean luke warm? Can we trust anything after such a claim?
