Going plastic-free ‘would be worse for environment’

Government expert calls for end to demonisation of material and says people are the real problem

THE war on plastic bags may actually harm the environment, a government adviser has warned, claiming it is people who are the real problem.

Dr Sally Beken, of the Knowledge Transfer Network and Innovateuk, which reports to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said plastic was suffering an identity crisis and needed to be revalued.

Speaking at The Cheltenham Science Festival, she argued that going plastic-free would have an environmental impact four times greater than sticking to current production levels.

“We’re demonising plastic,” she said: “We thinks plastic kills. Plastic is a material, it doesn’t have a conscience, we do. It’s not the material, it’s us. Plastic saves lives. We should value what plas- tic can do.

“If we were to change from plastics to paper, there would be seven times as many trucks to deliver those bags, so there is a carbon footprint.

“I see plastic as a resource rather than a waste material. If we banned all plastic, the environmental footprint would be four times as great.”

In January, Prime Minister Theresa May warned that plastic was “truly one of the greatest environmental scourges of our time” and said future genera- tions would be “shocked at how we allow so much plastic to be produced needlessly”. The Government has committed to hugely reducing plastic production as part of its 25-year Environmental Plan and in 2015 imposed a 5p levy on plastic bags.

Dr Beken also wrote a recent blog for Innovateuk arguing that Britain was suffering from “plastiphobia”, and accepting her stance was unpopular.

“When I mention I’m involved with plastics for a living, I sometimes get a look along the lines of ‘you killed a baby whale’. But she added: “I think polymers and plastics are fantastic; I’ve chosen to spend my whole career with them after all.”

Dr Mark Miodownik, a material scientist from University College London, warned that supermarkets would struggle to keep food waste down without plastic.

“We need to get to the point where we’re not throwing away this plastic. We need to find a way to recycle all that plastic back into the system,” he told the festival.