The prioritising of plastic packaging in the government’s new waste strategy for England is sensible. Forcing producers to take responsibility for the rubbish they create is the right approach. Combined with measures including a deposit return scheme covering bottles, cans and coffee cups, a plan to reduce the confusing variation in services offered by councils, and a new focus on food and garden waste, at last this is a set of proposals that treats the UK’s waste problem seriously. The current system for dealing with packaging, which charges producers for just 10% of the cost of disposal or recycling, has failed. Businesses are sure to push back hard against proposals to make them – rather than local authorities – bear the full cost of their destructive practices. But provided the government sticks to its plans, the nettle of plastic pollution, and endlessly proliferating packaging, will have been grasped.
Recycling rates in England are stuck at around 45%, though Wales does much better at 57.3%. An EU target of 50% by 2020 is likely to be missed. European countries including Germany, Slovenia and Austria are far ahead. The lack of progress can’t all be blamed on politicians, although cuts to waste services won’t have helped. Other factors include changing lifestyles, and patterns of consumption in which pre-prepared and takeaway meals play a large part. Communication by public authorities and businesses has often been poor, though this is unsurprising when the message is so complicated (on a street that is also a local authority boundary, items recycled on one side of the road might not be on the other). Thankfully, revelations of fraud in the UK plastics recycling industry, combined with growing public awareness of the extent of ocean pollution, and its impact on wildlife, has focused minds. Things cannot go on as they are. Although environment secretary Michael Gove understands this, his plans do not go far enough. While disruption on a massive scale to supply chains and the wider economy is anticipated as a result of Brexit, the much more modest inconvenience that would be caused by strict new rules banning, say, black plastic and polystyrene – neither of which is currently economic to recycle – has been judged unmanageable. This is an opportunity missed. So is the lack of action on textiles, 300,000 tonnes of which go to landfill each year. So is the caution: while Scotland is set to implement its bottle deposit scheme in 2020, England must wait until 2023.
Producers and retailers should have been handed responsibility for waste much sooner, and incentivised by government to change their ways, instead of allowed to pass the buck to other countries. The UK recycling industry, and manufacturers of renewable alternatives to single-use bags, batteries and other items, should have been nurtured. Waste management presents opportunities as well as costs. The £8m fund for plastics research is an example of how government can stimulate novel industry. The strategy makes reference to the “circle of life”, and it is good that the government plans to abide by new EU targets on sustainability. What is needed now is a plan for dramatic reductions. The world produces 330m tonnes of plastic a year, a figure that is expected to treble. Such big numbers are hard to comprehend. Waste is part of a picture of unsustainable consumption. But little things matter: the 5p shopping bag charge, which David Cameron’s government dithered over, is thought to have led to a 30% reduction of bags on the seabed. Feelings of helplessness are no excuse for inaction.
