We’ve got to look beyond recycling plastics
If we carry on treating food waste and packaging as separate issues, we will never fix the environment
The curious case of electronics giant Sony highlights what can happen when organisations fall prey to the curse of the silo. In 1999, Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei took to the stage in Las Vegas to reveal the latest instalment in the Walkman line of portable music players, set to revolutionise how we consumed music. The crowd applauded and journalists clamoured to get a closer look at the product. A hush then descended as Idei stepped forward with a second device. The Vaio Music Clip did virtually the same job as the new Walkman. The products effectively neutralised one another, failing to offer a coherent version of what Sony believed the future should look like. Within two years both had been forgotten.
This is the peril of the silo. Once a bastion of innovation, by the Nineties Sony was a labyrinth of 25 sub-companies. The result was a breathtaking lack of joined-up thinking devoid of any sense of strategic vision.
The UK’S broken waste management system is another case in point. By addressing connected issues in isolation – ocean pollution, plastic packaging alternatives, rubbish collection, food waste, and depleted soil – we are rendering impotent any efforts to repair our relationship with the environment.
Britain generates more than
2 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. Much of that makes its way into our land, rivers and oceans where it will languish for centuries. Humanity pumps out 1 million plastic bottles a minute. One year’s production will stretch halfway to the sun. Recycling is often touted as the answer, yet only 9 per cent of our plastic is recycled in the UK itself. National Audit Office figures revealed last month that more than half of the packaging we set aside for recycling is shipped abroad to be incinerated or sent to landfill.
Britons also throw away about £13 billion worth of food each year. Only 10 per cent of UK food waste is composted while the rest goes to landfill or is incinerated. Just 26 per cent of English households have access to separate food waste collection. This is a criminal waste of a valuable resource. Britain’s soil is set to become infertile in just 40 years, yet we ignore the potential of food waste and compostable packaging that, when broken down, can help deliver nutrients to depleted soils.
Governments and industry are quick to identify problems that affect their own business or public opinion – vowing to solve them but doing so without considering much the wider picture. The UK is lagging behind countries like Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands and Germany, which have had sophisticated waste management plans in place for decades.
Later this year, the Department for the Environment will publish a new resources and waste strategy. After decades of silo thinking across government and UK plc, the time has come for a radical rethink on how we manage waste in the UK. The strategy must mandate the collection of food waste from every household, and promote biomaterial packaging that can be broken down into something Nature can easily handle. These materials will break down into water, carbon and biomass, helping create rich compost that can bolster the UK’S food security for decades ahead.
A comprehensive strategy must also debunk the myth that we can recycle our way out of the plastic problem. Plastic is only downcycled when it is recycled, ensuring that eventually it will be rendered materially useless but dangerous. The “circular economy” for plastic is in fact a downward spiral. So instead of just investing in plastics recycling infrastructure, public money should be invested in proper food waste collection, anaerobic digestion and industrial composting plants. This would ensure that Britain’s waste is put to use addressing the challenge of chronic soil infertility.
Food waste, plastic pollution, climate change and food security represent the defining issues of our time. They’re all connected, yet we are failing to think strategically in our bid to meet the challenges of the future. Defra’s resources and waste strategy must banish the curse of the silo. We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do the right thing. Let’s not waste it.