ACA UPDATE
“The Airline Catering Association (ACA) welcomes the EU’s move to ban single-use plastics (SUPs) but there are questions to address.
“The most obvious replacement for disposable plastic plates is rotable plastic but EU legislation also dictates that catering waste from outside EU borders is incinerated or buried in landfill so that wouldn’t make sense and incinerating rotable plastics or other replacement materials may cause even more harmful emissions!
“One of the reasons that airlines chose SUPs is that they are lighter, less weight means less fuel and less emissions – enforcing this change on airlines is not necessarily an environmentally-friendly move.
“Even if we found a light, reusable or recyclable alternative you must consider that all materials touching food have a finite life cycle and that recycling itself uses lots of energy.
“In addition, would this apply only to airlines flying within the EU? What about planes landing in the EU from the U.S., or heading out to Asia?
“Switching to rotables would be a logistical challenge for caterers. But it will be up to the airlines to decide how to deal with it – with choices ranging from rotable to recyclable plastics, non-plastics to no catering on short-haul flights.
“The latter would be a nightmare scenario for the catering industry, but we remain hopeful it won't come to this since passenger experience is the main differentiator in this industry.
"If the EU’s directive is to eliminate marine litter then the airline industry, which doesn’t contribute to this at all, could be exempted.
“But we don’t want to shy away from our responsibilities, nor use economic arguments that would rightly be rejected. We simply want to ask questions and assess feasibility.
"I don’t want to see a law rushed through without consequences being considered. After all, it’s not just plastic which impacts the environment.”