Your plastic bottle’s (back) in; your glass bottle’s (now) out; in out, in out, policymakers shake it all about. David Burrows reports.

Research published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling in June 2022 assessed consumers’ perception of and willingness to pay for alternatives to conventional plastic packaging. This revealed “an ambiguous picture”, the academics based in Germany wrote, adding: “[…] if neither theorists, nor companies, nor government agree on the sustainability of different types of packaging – how are consumers supposed to make correct assessments?” 

They concluded general disagreement over what represents ‘better’ packaging hangs over a consumer base that “explicitly ask[s] for more information regarding the (real) environmental impact of packaging. In this context, the political level seems to have to take greater responsibility.” 

In the interim three years we have had no real breakthrough. There is no silver bullet. However, what we do have here in the UK is some sense of policy direction. At least, we will have in the next five weeks or so after the government promised to publish the extended producer responsibility (EPR) base fees for 2025/26 by June. This is cutting it fine given the chaos created by the illustrative fees released so far and the fact that these charges come into force in October.

Responsible businesses will already have submitted their 2024 packaging data under the pEPR scheme (irresponsible ones should note the deadline passed on April 1st). And it would be foolish to assume that things will now go to plan. Indeed, the government’s statement on EPR in February caveated that the big reveal on final base fees would be “on the basis of timely submissions of sufficient producer data reported into the EPR for packaging digital service (report packaging data), enabling satisfactory regulatory checks”.

Hospitality hokey cokey

Pubs and the wider drinks sector have been particularly vocal in their criticism of the long-time-coming policy. Companies using glass suggest the fees could shatter businesses and lead to a big switch to Chinese glass or plastic. What a turnaround: your plastic bottle’s (back) in; your glass bottle’s (now) out; in out, in out, policymakers shake it all about (leaving everyone a little ‘ra ra ra’ trying to understand what it’s all about). 

Natalie Campbell, co-CEO of mineral water supplier Belu, told Footprint earlier this month that the rationale behind EPR – that harder to recycle materials are more expensive to place on the market, so driving use of readily recyclable packaging – “makes perfect sense”. However, in its current form, “the new regulation is not fit for purpose”, she said, adding: “The cheaper alternatives to glass are plastic bottles and cans, and of these options using virgin PET and aluminium are cheaper than recycled because of the money needed to sort, process, and maintain the quality of the materials.”

Indeed, figures produced by Recycling Magazine show the gap between rPET (recycled PET) and virgin PET was in excess of €400 (£342) per tonne last year. In other words, buying virgin PET can save a considerable amount of cash for major beverage brands. The magazine reported that some brands and fast-moving consumer goods companies (FMCGs) are cutting back their use of rPET to the minimum contracted volumes, which for beverage bottles is often between 25-30%. This is either to meet the mandatory recycled content target for beverage bottles as set out in the EU’s Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD), which came into effect on January 1st 2025, or in line with internal company targets.”

Mind the opportunity gap

That isn’t good news. The price of recycled plastic is not expected to reach “exactly the same as virgin material,” but it “will get to a point where it’s affordable”, said Steven Hedrick, CEO of chemical research firm AVN Corporation, in an interview with Platts during the World Petrochemical Conference in Houston, US, in March. He said the “additional handling and steps” associated with recycled plastic must be recognised throughout the value chain. Availability of recycled content is also insufficient to meet growth in demand, Hedrick said: “Do we have enough infrastructure to do this? No, absolutely not.”

Wrap has produced some estimates of the gaps in capacity (or what it calls ‘capacity investment opportunity’) that’ll open up as EPR and other packaging policies, like simpler recycling schemes, kick in. By 2035 we will need the following additional reprocessing infrastructure:

• Glass – 172Kt/per annum (pa)
• Aluminium and steel – 203Kt/pa
• Plastic – 324Kt/pa
• Anaerobic digestion – 1.375Mt/pa
• Paper/board – 1.7Mt/pa

Filling these gaps – sorry, embracing these opportunities – is towards the top of the to-do list at the government’s new circular economy taskforce as it develops a new circular economy strategy; no mean feat given the current state of policy, industry ire, cost pressures and, let’s be honest, so many years of linear thinking that has lined the pockets of lots of companies.

“Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve consumed products in largely the same way,” noted McKinsey experts in a circularity blog. “A company will extract or collect the resources to create a product, which consumers then buy, use, and ultimately throw away. This is known as a linear model of mass consumption.” 

The consultants outline the threats from continuing down this path and the opportunities of closing the loop. In plastics, as much as $100bn (£75bn) of investment will be required globally to achieve the goal of containing 20-30% recycled materials, for example. There are red flags among the green opportunities, such as the “up to tenfold increase in recycled, sustainably produced products” in fashion – which could suck more plastic bottles out of the circular loops that drinks manufacturers want to create. The following line is also a bit of a worry given what those German researchers found: “Increasing consumer demand for sustainable products is probably the biggest driver of circularity.”

Last place aesthetics 

McKinsey has conducted its own consumer research, including a paper in 2023 that’s worth a mention because it looked at attitudes before and since the pandemic. The majority of people have become less concerned about hygiene and food safety for example: the number of UK consumers more concerned fell 31 percentage points between 2020 and 2023, for example. They are still the most important aspects of product packaging for UK consumers (72%), above shelf life (63%) and ease of use (51%). 

Environmental impact (45%) was second bottom, though intriguingly placed above appearance (28%) – a finding that should well be used to push plainer packaging in order to encourage, increase and economise both recycling and reuse.

“[…] if we could shift the rigid mindset around ‘colours = branding’ and instead opt for colours defining specific categories, we could transform packaging into a recycler’s dream come true,” wrote Edward Kosior, CEO and founder of Nextek, a consultancy specialising in packaging and recycling, in Packaging Europe magazine almost exactly two years ago. 

Kosior suggested food products in natural or white packaging, non-food in pastels and hazardous substances in black plastic – a rose-tinted view shared by other recyclers that say sorting speeds and clean yields would rocket if categories were colour-coded (and presumably prices for recycled content would also fall accordingly…?). 

Paper cups and pennies

Which brings us to the final couple of noteworthy items. The first comes from Cardiff where residents and visitors who return a paper cup to certain shops within the city receive a 5p reward. The project, being run by the National Paper Cup Recycling Scheme along with tech company Bower and Keep Wales Tidy, started last week and will run for three months.

“This initiative is a unique collaboration between competing brands, uniting in the fight against landfill waste,” a statement reads. “While reusable cup use is on the rise, single-use cups remain a significant challenge, with an estimated 2.5 billion paper cups [or, according to some attending a recent Footprint Intelligence report launch closer to 6 billion] disposed of each year in the UK, many of which end up in landfill due to improper recycling.”  

The initiative is being funded by scheme members Costa Coffee, McDonald’s, Caffè Nero, Pret A Manger, Greggs, Burger King, and Lavazza Professional. No Starbucks – which is also absent from the reusable cup scheme that will shortly end in Glasgow. 

The ‘Borrow Cup’ pilot, run by Hubbub, offers standardised reusable cups at more than 40 major brands and independent cafés in the city. The cups and lids are made from polypropylene, by Berry Global, and can be recycled at ‘end of life’. After just three uses the cups ‘beat’ single-use on carbon emissions. RFID chips will also help “measure uptake, returns, and environmental impact to determine how Borrow Cup can become environmentally and financially viable”. We will have more on that for you in due course.

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