Get radical to defuse the plastic timebomb

Four proven initiatives can have a big impact on the environmental scourge of our times

They used to be a familiar sight along roadsides across the country: the tattered remains of plastic bags, flapping in the wind. But since the Government launched its plastic bag charge in 2015, the offending items have largely gone

– the number used by shoppers has dropped by more than 85 per cent.

A success story, then. But sadly, only the tip of the plastic waste timebomb. As Theresa May acknowledged when she launched her 25-year plan for the environment in January, plastic waste is one of the great environmental scourges of our time.

Now there is another opportunity to turn off the plastic tap. The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, is to use his spring statement tomorrow to launch a public consultation on how we can tackle the problem.

Over the past year, the British public have jumped from being the snails in the race against plastic pollution to becoming the noisiest nation in Europe, if not the world. We now realise that simply recycling plastic waste is not the answer – instead, we need radical, seismic solutions.

Right now, we have very little choice but to buy our food and drink packaged in plastic. But industry and retailers are waking up to the problem – and all acknowledge that we are at a rare moment in history when extraordinary change can happen. So I would urge Mr Hammond to consider four initiatives.

First, to use the tax system to reward supermarkets for measurable reductions in conventional plastic packaged food and drink. Two weeks ago, Ekoplaza supermarket in Amsterdam launched its first plasticfree aisle, soon to be rolled out in all 74 of its stores. More than 700 products are available, all conveniently packaged, but in truly recyclable glass, card, wood pulp, metal and compostable bio-materials. We can do the same here – but we need to incentivise retailers to do it.

Secondly, to urgently review the UK PRN (packaging recovery note) system. This is the money paid by packaging producers to sorting plants and traders to recover packaging waste. We currently contribute only 10 per cent of any other advanced EU economy through PRN: £80 million, compared to £600 million in Italy and £800 million in Germany. In other words, packaging producers in the UK have not paid anything like their share of the costs of recovering their waste. This imbalance must be rectified.

Thirdly, the £7 billion innovation fund announced by Mrs May in January should be awarded to commercial companies that are already coming up with solutions – such as James Cropper, a paper manufacturer which is making quality paper from “unrecyclable” coffee cups, or Biome Biotechnologies, which is producing new compostable materials. We don’t need to start from scratch on solutions – a new expert committee, made up of people from retail, the packaging industry and packaging regulators should be formed to decide which products are already commercially proven and environmentally sound, to help them scale up to meet future demand.

Finally, we need to urgently review, and pilot substantial improvements to our waste management system in Britain, which is hugely underfunded compared to our European neighbours. According to Wrap (the Waste and Resources Action Programme), we currently collect and compost only 10 per cent of our food waste, with more than six million tons going to landfill every year. When the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also tells us that our topsoil has fewer than 100 harvests left, we clearly need to think about turning our waste management into resource management, using food waste to re-fertilise our soil – or we will not be growing crops in the UK by 2060.

Of course plastic will always have a place in our world, and we must not demonise it. Without plastic we would not have the technology, the transportation and the medical science that we all benefit from. But we need to stop the wrong use of this clever, indestructible material – treating it as rubbish, throwing it in our gutters, our fields and our oceans – and re-establish it on its rightful pedestal as a miracle material. It starts with one plastic-free aisle in Holland. But such a start could truly change the world.