The single-use plastics problem
The packaging around our food is not – in itself – the root of all evil; the issue is not being able to dispose of it. Xanthe Clay looks at what can be done to mitigate the environmental impact
Walk around a supermarket and what do you see? Plastic. Shrink-wrapped cucumbers. Apples in four-packs glistening with cellophane. Chicken in a straitjacket of skintight cling film. Ranks of yogurt pots and piles of pasta packs. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles of milk, and six packs of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) water bottles shrinkwrapped in another layer of, yes, plastic. Even the ground coffee, apparently virtuously bagged in brown paper, or the oh-so-rustic cardboard box of biscuits, are both lined with plastic. We’ve got a plastic addiction.
Almost everything we buy comes in a layer of plastic, but food is a serious offender. In the UK alone we use around 500,000 tonnes of plastic packaging a year just to wrap food, and generate 7.7million single-use water bottles.
Not so long ago we were blasé about the all-pervasive packaging, tossing rustling bags of carrots next to doublewrapped pet food in our trolleys with scarcely a thought. But the “Blue Planet Effect” has seen public opinion increasingly turning against plastic, and at Cop26 this month the University of Portsmouth announced the formation of a new Global Plastics Policy Centre, with the aim of tackling plastic pollution. In addition, the report this week on microplastics should have given us all serious pause for thought. Given the health issues for us and for marine life, we need to consider our options.
The problem is, plastic is just too useful. It’s a wonder material, being cheap, lightweight, strong, waterproof, infinitely malleable. Since Leo Baekeland knocked out the first Bakelite – the first entirely synthetic plastic – in the laboratory in his New York home back in
‘Half of all plastic becomes waste within a year of being made and most of it isn’t recycled’
1907, plastic has become intrinsic to our lives. Without it, many of the advances of modern medicine would be impossible – including the recent vaccine drive.
Plastic, then, is not the root of all evil – the issue is our love of plastic, and inability to dispose of the quantity we are producing. We are being engulfed in a tsunami of plastic waste. Professor Steve Fletcher of the University of Portsmouth pointed out: “Half of all plastic becomes waste within a year of being made and the vast majority isn’t recycled. Eleven million metric tons of plastic ends up in our oceans every year, a shocking figure which is estimated to triple to near 29million metric tons by 2040, if nothing is done.”
It’s an issue on land as well as sea. Most of our “recyclable” plastic used to be processed in China, but since 2018 they have refused to take it. Instead it has been shipped to countries including Malaysia and Indonesia where it often festers in heaps or is burnt in highly polluting fires, rather than undergoing any form of recycling. Out of sight, out of mind.
It’s enough to raise the hackles of anyone concerned about the future of the planet. But to get to grips with the problem, we need to recognise that there are two separate issues here: plastic waste and global warming. While there is a huge plastic pollution issue, it is mostly made as a by-product of the oil industry, so plastic’s carbon footprint compares well to the alternatives.
Take carrier bags. That cotton tote might shout your green credentials, but it is fuel-hungry to make and heavy to transport, meaning that its carbon footprint is 131 times that of a single-use plastic bag. That means, to be as good in C02 terms as using a single-use plastic bag, you would need to use the cotton bag 131 times.
Just how realistic is it to expect us to use a bag that many times? We’ve got used to the pristine neatness of a virgin plastic bag; that cotton bag is going to be pretty scruffy after it’s hauled home a load for the 130th time. So much for the spotless, shiny space age depicted in the movies...
Xanthe Clay is on a panel discussing Plastics in the Environment at the Networks for Nature conference in Bath Nov 20; networksfornature.org.uk
SO WHY IS A CUCUMBER SHRINK-WRAPPED?
For fruit and vegetables, plastic packaging performs a number of roles. It stops produce with a high water content from drying out and dramatically increases the shelf life. According to Why Shrinkwrap a Cucumber? The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging by Stephen Aldridge and Laurel Miller, a wrapped cucumber lasts three times as long as an unwrapped one, which means fewer deliveries, lower fuel use and less food waste. Delicate fruit like apples, pears and plums are protected from tumbling and bruising as they thunder along the motorway in the back of a lorry.
That said, from next January, France is banning plastic packaging on 30 fruits and vegetables, including cucumbers, leeks, courgettes, tomatoes, apples, pears and plums. Admittedly they have a climate more suited to year-round domestic production, but nonetheless, British retailers and environmentalists will be watching closely.
SO WHY DON’T WE JUST GET RID OF SINGLE-USE PACKAGING ON DRIED GOODS?
It’s certainly easier to reduce the amount of packaging we use, with the recent boom in eco-shops with refill stations for everything from cornflakes to cleaning products. In principle these are a great idea, but they require us to be organised enough to bring the clean containers with us when we shop, which might mean taking them with us when we go to work in the morning. We also need to trust the individual shopkeeper to keep the products fresh and uncontaminated. It’s a big change of mindset for customers used to sealed bags with individual sell-by dates.
IS IT BETTER TO USE GLASS BOTTLES?
Glass is recyclable – indeed a proportion of “old” glass is needed to make a new batch – and in theory it can be recycled an infinite number of times. We are also more used to recycling glass than plastic in this country – according to industry body British Glass we recycle about three quarters of our glass packaging. So far, so good. But it’s heavy and often requires yet more packaging to protect it in transit, meaning that fewer bottles will fit in a lorry and the fuel burden is higher.
Bear in mind the environmental cost of making the bottle too, which is higher than plastic: according to environmental charity Wrap you’ll need to use it 20 times to make it greener than plastic, but in practice they are used about 18 times.
AREN’T PAPER BAGS BETTER THAN PLASTIC BAGS?
Paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic (see box), are hard to reuse and if they go into landfill (rather than recycling) they create methane, a potent greenhouse gas. That said, paper bags don’t linger for centuries in the environment as a danger to wildlife.
Shopping with paper in a British climate is high risk and potentially a cause of food waste – a rainstorm at the farmers’ market last week saw my bag collapse and a fiver’s worth of cherry tomatoes roll merrily down the hill. Remember your tatty old reusable bag, guys.
WHAT ABOUT RECYCLED PLASTIC?
The number of times plastic can be recycled into the same item is limited and depends on various factors, among them the colour (clear plastic is easier to find a use for) and the type. Estimates vary from none to 10 (although the polymers may be able to be used in fabric production, for example). The sheer volume of different kinds of plastic makes it much more complicated and some environmentalists are lobbying for a reduction in the number of kinds in use. Price is another issue: the EU is imposing a tax on virgin plastic to make recycled more attractive, while from April 2022 the UK will charge a levy on plastic packaging that does not contain 30 per cent recycled content, so expect to see higher levels of recycled plastic in packaging.