7 minute read
Sustainability
Talking in Circles, Directly
With so much noise around recycling and still little by way of a universal approach to it, it stands to reason that today’s consumer remains confused. But out of that confusion, says Products of Change in their regular column for Total Licensing, is a chance for brands to implement better design and instigate better conversations with their audiences.
We know the practice by now; drain the milk, squash the plastic bottle down and replace the lid. Shove the result in the recycling bin and wait for the recycling fairies to take it away. It couldn’t be simpler. In fact, so easy is the squash/lid-replace process that 95 per cent of consumers display an assured confidence that they are recycling their plastic bottles with ease, at home, every time. Squash it, lid it, bin it. Simple. No questions asked. Except, and on a mission to find some real, first-hand data on the levels of domestic consumer recycling, someone did start asking questions. That someone is the plastics recycling charity RECOUP, and what they found was more than a small discrepancy when it comes to the actions that consumers think they are taking, versus those that are really taking place. When the success of kerbside collection depends so much on the actions of consumers themselves, it’s an eyeopening truth to discover that it is only 67 per cent of plastic bottles purchased that are getting recycled by the consumer. Look at the data surrounding levels of plastic pots, tubs, and trays being placed in domestic recycling and it’s even more staggering – at an eyewatering 36 per cent.
What’s evident, according to RECOUP’s findings, is that consumer sentiment and the reality of their athome actions aren’t always adding up. Of course, it is a tricky topic to navigate. Plastics really is a subject still mired in confusion. But with a singularity of standard still not in place, and with the labelling of plastics and their recyclability and mixed-signal messaging adding to the recycling noise, is it really any wonder? “It is critical to educate consumers on plastics in order to protect the environment,” Anne Hitch, head of stakeholder and citizen strategy at RECOUP told attendees of a Products of Change platform exclusive webinar earlier this month. “And we’re a team that acts to provide that education – to the public and to businesses – to preserve and protect the physical and natural environment for the public benefit through the promotion of waste reduction and recycling of plastics.” And tapping into its 30 years’ experience in the field of doing just that, RECOUP will tell you that the key element to address is design.
Designing out waste
It’s a well-established idea that 90 per cent of a product’s environmental impact is determined at design stage, just as much as it is that the best way to address plastic waste when applying the principle of the Four Rs – Remove, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle – is to design it out of the equation to begin with. The supermarket giant, Tesco, has been making clear headway in doing just this. According to its latest report, the retailer has now removed more than one and a half billion pieces of plastic from its UK business since it first introduced its Four Rs strategy. Among the categories to find its packaging overhauled in such a way, the greetings card industry has worked with Tesco to remove more than 50 million pieces of plastic wrapping from its products. Overall, more than 500 million pieces of unnecessary plastic have been identified and removed
from across Tesco’s product portfolio in the last 12 months alone. But it isn’t solely about designing out. It’s also taking a closer look at what has been designed into the packaging. And that means the concept of circularity. Paul East, head of packaging recycling and design at RECOUP, explains that “packaging decisions ultimately dictate how a product goes through the recycling system.” And it’s a process in which everything counts. From the size of your label or your product itself (Tic Tac boxes, he notes, slip through the recycling system owing to their size) to the colour or opacity of your plastic. “Sleeves that cover more than 60 per cent of the surface area of the packaging, for example, are something to avoid because they cause misreads in the infrared gun that is fired at packaging in the sorting process to determine what kind of polymer it is made from,” explains East. “Meanwhile, compostable biodegradable and oxydegradable plastics are things to avoid altogether, simply because the systems aren’t in place to break them down. Other companies might try to introduce something like silicone – which really messes up recycling because it floats in the float test along with plastics but has an entirely different melting temperature.” The world of plastic packaging is an
ultimately deeply nuanced one. But the more that businesses and consumers understand of the recycling processes at play across the UK, states East, the higher the buy-in and greater the chance of a change of habits. The chance here then, for brands to become the educators in recycling processes, is one not to be missed. “For me the eye-opening element here is not the sheer amount of plastic we think is being recycled that isn’t (though this is horrific), but actually the two great opportunities we can see here to drive change,” says Helena Mansell Stopher, founder and CEO of
Products of Change. “Firstly, to design with recycling in mind and secondly to communicate efficiently to the consumer how best to dispose of the product. “We have to start looking beyond the retail shelf and start to design with disposal and circularity in mind. It might not be sexy, but boy can we drive real change if we start to do this.”
Leading the conversation
The incoming plastic packaging tax – coming into effect on 1 April this year here in the UK – will undoubtedly force the hand of many companies. A cost of £200 per tonne of plastic packaging manufactured or imported to the UK made up of less than 30 per cent recycled plastic upon companies shifting 10 tonnes per year or more, will certainly amplify the conversation. But to what extent will this provide the answer we’re ultimately looking for? Earlier this month, a landmark resolution was met at the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi to begin work on a legally binding treaty to end plastics pollution and the production of single-use plastics. Recorded as ‘an historic day’ for the planet’s fight against pollution, it is the first major step on what will be a long journey to draw up a treaty between 175 member nations by 2024, and then implement it. But doing so successfully has become critical. It’s long been suggested that the plastic pollution crisis is not one we can recycle our way out of, and Organisations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation are working hard to encourage businesses and industries to switch to a circular model before it is a crisis that deepens beyond the point of return. Without action taken, it’s predicted that greenhouse gas emissions from the production, recycling, and incineration of plastics could account for 19 per cent of the Paris Agreement’s total allowable emissions in 2040 to limit global warming to 1.5C. It’s good news then, that increasingly, businesses are beginning to pay attention. Within days of the gavel coming down on the UNEA 5 resolution, a group of major UK retailers – including M&S, Morrisons, and Waitrose and Partners – made public a coalition drawn up with Ocado and the supply chain solutions company, CHEP, to help end single-use plastic packaging by introducing Refill options for consumers up and down the country, both in-stores and online. Designed for scale, the collaborative project ‘marks the first step in developing a worldwide standard for plastic-free food distribution’, from the supplier to the cupboard. If successful, the solution could play a key role in reducing the 56.5 billion units of single-use plastic packaging sold each year in the UK. Claire Shrewsbury, director of insights and innovation at the plastic specialist, WRAP, puts that all into perspective when she labels it a “game-changing initiative” that could just pave the way for the mainstream adoption of refill and reuse across the consumer space altogether. And that, it goes without saying, is going to cause major shifts in the dynamic and tone of the conversations that brands are having with their consumer audiences today. There’s never been a better opportunity for brands to get ahead of those conversations than right now. After all, we can’t be squashing bottles forever!
Contact:
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helena@productsofchange.com rob@productofchange.com
5.5 - 7.5. 2022
