Western Morning News (Saturday)
Technology shows the way to go plastic-free
In what is plastic free month, this July, Martin Hesp reports on innovations in the packaging industry, being led by one Westcountry sausage maker
ATEAM of North Devon volunteers hauls an entire trailerload of plastic waste from a remote beach. A Devon sausagemaker wraps himself in a very special sort of plastic film for a photoshoot, while an Italian manufacturer wonders how he can build on his Westcountry connections and persuade the British public to use his eco-friendly cling-film style wrap.
These diverse strands are all part of the same story. They represent the good-bad polarity of a tale which fits well with the concept of Plastic-FreeJuly.
It is a concept that has been overshadowed - but certainly not reduced - by the coronavirus pandemic. It began a year ago when I was standing on a beach in Vietnam. You could hardly see the sand for plastic. It was everywhere. If it wasn’t entire items like plastic bottles, nets, lines and food containers, the sand was dotted with white polystyrene globules that looked like snow. A few months later I was on a Cornish beach where, to my horror, I saw much the same thing.
And just before writing these words I noticed a Twitter post by the North Devon AONB service with photos of volunteers who’d gone to what must be one of the most remote large beaches in Britain at Spekes Mill Mouth to retrieve half a tonne of plastic detritus from an otherwise pristine shoreline.
The story jumps from beaches to bangers. A while ago I met an old friend - Charles Baughan of Westaway’s sausages - who told me how he’d invested a great deal of time and money in a bid to become the first meat producer in the UK to use packaging that was 100 % ecofriendly.
We discussed how to get the word out and commissioned photographer Steve Haywood, who snapped this image of Charles wrapped in the compostable packaging film. This newspaper was the first to carry the story, after which it went viral with the image appearing across the media.
Another of Steve’s photos depicted Charles examining his compost heap at home where the new wrapping film had started to biodegrade.
But hang on, I thought… What is this film and what is it degrading into? I asked Charles, and he put me in touch with Michele Govoni, UK branch managing director of the Italian company Gruppo Fabbri, which sells the compostable bioplastic.
Michele told one of the biggest nightmares waste-disposal operations have is with cling-film style wrappings – which nowadays sheath a vast number of “fresh” products sold in supermarkets. “Often they will have some residue left on them grease from meat, sauce from prepacked meals and so on. So they are difficult to clean. The result is that the vast majority of film-wrapping ends up in landfill,” Michele told me .
“In Italy there are now tight laws on packaging. The Nature Fresh film we sell – and which Westaways is now using – will break down into natural substances such as water, carbon dioxide, and compost…It is a bio-plastic...the material can be either bio-based (derived fully or partly from biomass or plants), biodegradable, or features both properties and Nature Fresh is biodegradable and compostable, thus it is a bioplastic.
“Biodegradation is a chemical process during which microorganisms that are available in the composting plant or in your home compost heap convert materials into water, carbon dioxide and new biomass so that they end up being safely disposed of.
“When you buy a pack of Westaways sausages you can simply put the cardboard tray into the recycling bin and either place the bioplastic film into your own garden compost heap or put into the organic waste bin for organic recycling. Either way it will break down into harmless materials and no plastic will be going into the environment.”
It is not the entire answer to the planet’s plastic problem, but if every item wrapped in plastic film sold in every supermarket were to be contained in the new material, it would undoubtedly prevent countless thousands of tonnes of plastic seeping into the environment each year.
So hat’s off to the small Westcountry sausage manufacturer who is leading the way in the UK. At the moment Charles Baughan is the only food company boss who has put his money where his mouth is and made the eco-friendly move. Others should follow his example.
Soon Nature Fresh film will be available in a roll to use it in our own kitchens. We might not all be able to haul plastic waste off remote beaches, but we can do our own little bit.