COMMENT

from the director

P

PHILIP LAW, DIRECTORGENERAL OF THE BRITISH PLASTICS FEDERATION (BPF), WEIGHS IN ON THE NEWS THAT THE UN IS NOW OFFICIALLY PURSUING A GLOBAL TREATY ON PLASTICS USE.

News of a future UN global treaty designed to prevent plastics waste ending up in the environment has just been released, although it’s been in gestation for some time. It’s something the plastics industry supports as we share both the common aim of stopping the mismanagement of plastucs waste and the approach to it via an international treaty. It is a global and not a local problem. However I was taken aback by the article which appeared in ‘The Times’ a couple of weeks ago by Inger Anderson who is head of the UN Environmental Programme and under whose aegis this treaty will be developed. It was very passionately written, indeed calling for a ‘war against plastics’. In my response I called for diplomacy, not war and expressed the view that the problem of plastics waste, the reasons for its occurrence and methods of its remediation should be subject to a balanced review without being clouded by emotion. BPF will be briefing UK government officials as the negotiations proceed.

One point which struck me in Ms Anderson’s article was the image she conveyed of a plastics industry which, with its own unique interests, stands apart from the rest of society like a pariah. Nothing could be further from the truth! The industry in the UK alone employs 180,000 people, even without applying a multiplier for family dependents or employees of supporting businesses. They breathe in the same air and walk in the same hills as the rest of society. Very many of them are committed environmentalists. Plastics companies are established parts of their local communities. Society benefits from their products. Take healthcare: if you stripped plastics out of hospitals you would be left with little more than metal framed beds. Vital lifesaving implants are made from plastics. Many surgical interventions would be impossible without plastics. The plastics industry is well and truly integrated into society and the modern innovations we rely upon.

It’s been quite a month for controversy. The Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) entered the fray and recommended the sale of some items of fresh produce to be sold loose with no packaging. Unfortunately there had been little consultation with manufacturing industry and this took many stakeholders by surprise. Even worse, one of the products recommended for this approach was the cucumber – the very icon of ‘packaging keeps food fresher for longer’ campaigns. We were quick to point out that the recommendation was based on a study of just a small number of food items and their lifespan in the home and it sidestepped the reality that many fresh products travel hundreds if not thousands of miles on their journey from farm to fork, packaging is required to protect and preserve them – and plastic packaging still excels at this with its lightweight, strength and provision of a moisture barrier, in addition to other unique benefits. Critically, it also ignored the need to maintain a high level of hygiene around supermarket shelves and to provide systems of traceability for foodstuffs.

One of the industry’s current difficulties is its restricted access to potential employees, particularly trained engineers, technical staff and shopfloor workers. Having given this considerable thought, there is perhaps one under-used and available resource to hand and that is the growing band of consultants, many of whom, until not long ago, were employed in senior technical roles in the industry. Some of them have conveniently banded together under the umbrella of the Plastics Consultancy Network, which has been going since about 1988, and is affiliated to the BPF. It’s well worth having a look at its membership, as it extends over all branches of plastics and rubber – and the combined experience isn’t numbered in decades, it’s in centuries!

If you have a particular issue that you need assistance with, one of their expert members could well be in a position to help. Alternatively, they might be able to form a team of experts to resolve your problem. The best point of entry is www.pcn.org

The industry in the UK alone employs 180,000 people, even without applying a multiplier for family dependents or employees of supporting businesses.

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