War on Plastic at Risk of Failure as Recycling Levels Slump

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Half of the targets of the industry’s flagship strategy in the war on plastic look set to be missed, as alarming figures show recycling levels decline.

A Wrap report revealing progress on the industry’s Plastics Pact shows it is on course to fall well short of some of its 2025 targets. It blames lack of government leadership and insufficient trials of new packaging by retailers and suppliers.

It said there needed to be a huge investment in kerbside recycling infrastructure and a massive scaling-up of technology such as reusable packaging in supermarkets to turn the tide.

Today’s progress report reveals that while there had been a 6% increase in the amount of packaging recycled and processed since the pact was launched in 2018, there had been a decline in overall recycling levels from 2020 to 2021. Some 50% of packaging was effectively recycled, compared with 52% a year ago.

While the figure is still higher than the 44% of packaging recycled in 2018, it is well short of the 2025 target of 70% (Target 3 of the pact) and on current trajectory would be almost back to where it started.

Wrap said delays in government policies such as the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) meant the UK was running out of time to meet its objectives in the war on plastic.

“Although we have seen the UK’s processing of plastics grow 50% over the past five years, analysis suggests that the UK will require an additional 440,000 tonnes per annum of domestic plastics reprocessing capacity to avoid falling short of Target 3,” says the report.

“But without certainty from government on key policy and the long lead times associated with building necessary infrastructure, it is unlikely that this capacity will be available to the market in time for the 2025 target deadline.”

Meanwhile, Wrap said the Covid pandemic and the economic backdrop had been holding back efforts by retailers and suppliers in pursuit of Target 2 of the pact – to have 70% of packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 – which is also on course to be missed.

Wrap said the use of reuse and refill technology was “pivotal” in reducing plastic packaging on the shelves but said that, despite trial by the likes of Asda and Tesco, it remained largely “exploratory”.

Just 1,800 tonnes of reusable packaging were placed on to the market in 2021, which Wrap said represented a tiny 0.2% of all packaging on the market.

In July, The Grocer revealed Tesco had quietly wound up its reusable packaging trial with eco company Loop, after admitting such initiatives would require a major consumer mind-shift before they could be rolled out at scale.

“Progress towards adopting and scaling-up reuse and refill has been hampered by market dynamics,” says the report. “The pandemic undoubtably impacted in-store refill and investment in packaging developments.

Meanwhile, Wrap said government delays in ensuring local authorities collected more plastic material such as film for recycling was a “key limiting factor” towards the target, with film recycling standing at just 7%.

While a fast rollout of supermarket collection points for soft plastic had led to more than 6,000 appearing across the UK, the government has said home collection services may not be fully implemented by 2027, which would make the target impossible to hit.

Wrap pointed to better progress on the industry’s pledge to reduce the use of “problematic” plastics, with the total reduced by 84% since 2018 from 734 to 114 million items, a 57% fall in tonnage.

By the end of 2025, a “significant proportion” of fruit & veg would be sold loose after moves across multiple supermarkets, it said,

However, it said there had been “slower than expected progress” in the removal of polystyrene, which had fallen by less than a quarter since 2018. Wrap said the delay had been “largely owing to the impact of Covid”.

Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at Wrap, praised the industry’s “significant investment” in tackling plastic, which she said had seen 620 million plastic items removed from supermarket shelves since 2018.

But she called for “urgent” government action to help the industry step up the pace.

“It seems clear to me that the hardest yards are ahead of us,” she said. “When we set the targets, we predicted that key policy measures such as consistency in recycling collections and Extended Producer Responsibility would provide the final pieces of the puzzle: building an effective and widespread collection and recycling system for bags and wrapping and ensuring non-recyclable packaging is designed out across the industry.

“Without these measures in place, we will struggle to achieve a 70% recycling rate by 2025 or meet the criteria for 100% of plastic packaging to be classified as recyclable, targets 2 and 3 of our pact.”

The report comes with environment secretary Therese Coffey having called for emergency talks with the industry to salvage its EPR plans, after the BRC and FDF called for the policy to be shelved to allow retailers and suppliers to concentrate on the cost of living crisis.

Courtesy: www.thegrocer.co.uk