This month we consider a rebrand as the first details of the new Plastic (and all other single-use materials) Pact 2026 emerge. By David Burrows.
“More than half of UK grocery products packaged in unnecessary plastic, research claims.” The headline of a piece on The Grocer’s website earlier this month. Interesting. Consider us hooked.
Perhaps this is an update from Wrap, the charity behind the Plastics Pact in which corporate signatories have committed to eliminate such ‘unnecessary’ (or ‘problematic’) plastic packaging by 2025? Or, maybe, it’s another of the NGO projects that casts supermarkets as super-villains that thrive on polluting the world with plastic? (The final talks to deliver a global Plastics Treaty do start in a few weeks’ time so I’ve been expecting the floodgates to open at some point).
No. And no.
This is ‘research’ conducted by DS Smith. You know the one: the paper and cardboard packaging giant. “We think government can and should be more demanding of us all – phasing out certain plastics to help create a level playing field that encourages innovation, investment, and generates healthy competition to replace plastic,” said group CEO Miles Roberts.
DS Smith has even gone to the trouble of making this research sound very grand indeed, calling it ‘The material change index’. But this is research funded by a company that profits from paper packaging showing that plastic is the problem. Why on earth are reputed publications regurgitating such propaganda?
Supermarket bosses and directors read The Grocer so I’ve no doubt that CSOs and packaging leads put their heads in their hands when this story was popped on the website. Indeed, we were in two minds about referring to it in this month’s Package. Giving it more air will fan the flames, won’t it? (Possibly). Were we just looking for an easy rant as our deadline loomed? (Always likely).
But then up popped this on LinkedIn: a post by Cromwell Polythene ripping into magazines that have switched from plastic films to paper as protective covers for issues that are delivered by post. “[…] paper is heavier, bulkier, and does wonders for deforestation,” Cromwell’s commercial director Alexander Lee writes. “I’ll take my plastic-wrapped Spectator, thank you very much.”
Let’s not read too much into Lee’s choice of news and analysis services. What concerns us (and should concern us all) is that the movement against packaging waste and pollution that captured the public’s imagination following Blue Planet and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s war against waste, has more recently developed into a battle royale between purveyors of single-use packaging.
Lee and Roberts have businesses to run and money to make, of course. And they are certainly not alone in trying to preserve their single-use packaging future (see Plastic Package columns past here). What’s more, this kind of tit-for-tat will intensify further as we enter an end of year period that includes the final talks to deliver a Global Plastics Treaty.
So, thank goodness for Martin Kersh: “Claiming ‘my single-use packaging is more sustainable than yours’ is nonsense,” wrote the executive director of the Foodservice Packaging Association (FPA) in a piece for Contract Catering magazine.
Pack it all in
This is what Wrap is actually now hoping to do. Following a consultation on a new post-2025 plastics pact the charity has now “proposed that the scope of the new agreement covers all packaging materials and focuses on specific market failures that need to be addressed”. According to the Wrap website the aim is to provide greater transparency and the ability to influence the UK’s packaging footprint; mitigate unintended consequences caused by material switching; and enable more holistic decision making.
“Delivery of the agreement targets will contribute towards net-zero and industry commitments to halve GHG impacts by 2030,” says Wrap of the new agreement’s ambition. Life cycle assessment specialists will be rubbing their hands together at this prospect but so too will those pushing for a reusable revolution. And with all this in mind, it’s no wonder the likes of DS Smith and Cromwell are starting to shout even louder: because they are afraid. And it’s not before time.
Foodservice companies should of course try and ignore this ‘either or’ bunfight and start to think about ‘neither nor’ first and foremost. Reduction sits atop the waste hierarchy. Let’s have targets to eliminate unnecessary plastic, paper and any other single-use packaging you care to name. Let’s choose to reuse.
Later this week, the FPA’s environment seminar takes place – and top of the bill is a session on how to make reusables work on the high street. A scaled up scheme involving a number of key coffee chain players is agonisingly close in the UK, we are told, but while we delay others dare.
The city of Aarhus (‘or-hoose’) in Denmark is currently running a reusable hot and cold takeaway cup programme. More than 50 shops are involved in the scheme, which will run for three years and has already taken a reported 300,000 orders. The open system, designed by Tomra, means packaging from different outlets can be returned 24/7 to a shared infrastructure of automated collection points throughout a city.
It’s all pretty simple, explained Tomra site manager René Jørgensen, recently: “When you buy a coffee in a reusable cup from one of our partners, you pay a five kroner deposit. When you’re finished drinking your coffee, you can scan a QR code to see a map of our deposit machines. You then place the cup in the machine and scan your card to get the five kroner back.”
Jørgensen admitted that the threshold for introducing it in Scandinavian cities is probably lower, because people are already accustomed to deposit return systems for plastic bottles (let’s not go down the UK DRS road this month). However, the highest rewards could be elsewhere: “We are in dialogue with cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo,” he said. “To put it into perspective, Tokyo has 40,000 coffee shops, while Aarhus only has around 100.”
It’s all good stuff. As is news that more visitor attractions are embracing reuse: Blenheim Palace and the Eden Project have new returnable cup schemes in place run by green tech firm re-universe. The scheme at the latter is estimated to save around 220,000 single-use coffee cups per year, eliminating around 4 tonnes of waste and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 72%.
Rockets
“Reusable cup systems [RCSs] should be standard (if not legislated) in closed consumption settings,” suggested Anthesis associate director Michael Lenaghan recently. “And yet despite the proven environmental superiority of a well-designed RCS, and the unique marketing and brand benefits they offer over single-use cups, reuse remains the exception, rather than the expectation in airports, cinemas, stadiums, festivals, campuses etc. It’s 2024, and this is not rocket science,” he added.
Charges on cups in Scotland and Ireland could push reuse, but Lenaghan says savvy and sustainably-minded venues should jump in sooner. A new whitepaper from Anthesis explains why (and how the consultancy can help you of course). There are some decent insights in there, not least relating to the cup itself. One key, ahem, takeout is not to over-engineer the cup: longer-lasting does not equate to better, and choosing a lightweight, sufficiently durable material is “critical to minimising the ‘starting gap’ – the number of uses needed before a returnable cup beats a single-use one on carbon impact.
Single-use cups also come in myriad materials, mixes and colours. How to best capture and process these is the subject of a new Footprint Intelligence report that will be launched in London tomorrow (November 5th). There won’t be fireworks but we do attack the burning issues: from public engagement and funding of a national campaign to processing the cups and how recyclers feel about those new ‘plastic-free’ aqueous liners some companies have bought into. It’s important stuff, even more so if the government decides to go for a mandatory cup takeback scheme. And even if it doesn’t it’s important because foodservice will need to do something to lift recycling rates of single-use cups.
As George Clark from City to Sea told us: “There is not a single café that isn’t aware of the problem with single-use cups and wants to do something about it.”
