Sainsburys: Packaging critical to reducing waste

Packaging producers and retailers need to do more to educate consumers about the critical role that packaging plays in reducing waste, the head of packaging at Sainsburys has said.

The comments came at an event yesterday (April 22) hosted by the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG) entitled Packaging: Minimising environmental impact through the life-cycle. The event was chaired by Dr Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton Test.

Speaking at the event, Mr Stuart Lendrum, head of packaging and design at the supermarket giant, said that packaging has an important role to play in reducing food waste across the supply chain.

With regards to reducing waste, be that reducing waste from the very initial part of the supply chain right through our stores and through homes, packaging plays a critical role and plays an important one in terms of reducing food waste.

Giving an example of a where packaging has a number of benefits, he said: It is great we are moving to vacuum packed products in fresh meat, fish and poultry as we are reducing waste, improving the life of the product and improving the taste and texture of the product.

However, he added that customer perception of such packaging is relatively negative meaning there is a challenge and a need to move that forward.

Sainsburys has a number of sustainability targets which packaging is included in. Discussing the targets, Mr Lendrum added: The targets are really around the hierarchy that we all know and for us on packaging, it is saying from a packaging point of view we want to reduce the amount of packaging we use and make it recyclable where possible and where we can make it from recycled material.

We have the opportunity over the business to be a significant engine driver in resource efficiency.

Campaign

Meanwhile, Dick Searle, chief executive of the Packaging Federation the trade association for the UK packaging manufacturing industry highlighted the Fresher for Longer campaign which was launched last month (see letsrecycle.com story). The communications campaign was launched alongside a report which found that changing consumer attitudes and behaviours towards packaging could reduce household food waste.

Mr Searle added that the supply chain has done a poor job in explaining the use of packaging to people and that more packaging would be needed in the future.

He said: The impact of course of food and drink in the supply chain without packaging would be hugely greater. So packaging is a solution and not just for this challenge. If we want to feed the world and have food security then just what we need is a lot more packaging.

Tetra Pak

Also at the event, Gavin Landeg, environmental manager at Tetra Pak, gave an overview of Tetra Paks work in the UK and highlighted the sustainable practices it was undertaking throughout the life cycle of its products.

Mr Landeg noted that 50% of local authorities are collecting cartons for recycling at the kerbside but said this needed to be increased.

We need to continue to increase this by working with ACE. Fundamental to this is putting a market in place, a UK market, for carton recycling by putting a value on the material. In the summer we will see a UK carton recycling plant come online, he said.

The facility is being developed by the Alliance for Beverage Cartons & the Environment (ACE UK), which represents manufacturers Elopak, SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak and is expected to be online in July 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story).

ESA

The final speaker of the day was Jacob Hayler, economist for the Environmental Services Association (ESA) who gave an overview from the collectors and reprocessors point of view.
Mr Hayler said more needs to be done to capture the packaging from the waste stream.

He said: Given that there is an important fundamental role for packaging we must really look at how we can recycle more of it and capture more packaging from households. It might be in terms of educating households so we can capture plastics from the bathroom as well as the kitchen or look at a number of advancements in technology.

He said this could create the need for more sorting, either at the kerbside or in a MRF, but noted that packaging is sorted at a MRF they still need to be of a certain quality to meet the needs of customers.

Looking at quality, Mr Hayler responded to a question from David Workman, director general for the Confederation of Paper Industries, who asked whether the waste management industry could meet the quality demands of China, which has recently set more stringent inspection requirements for shipments of waste. In response, Mr Hayler said he was confident that the ESAs members would be able to deal with it.