Mr Sayeed responded to a number comments from delegates including one from a Cheltenham councillor who attacked industry members and government responses towards the production of excess packaging and related waste.
He said: “We end up paying more for our packaging than we do for our food in the supermarket, when what we need is processes to address getting rid of the packaging in the first place.”
Jonathan Sayeed agreed with this, and said: “We don't need to produce this waste in the first place,” and went on to criticise the government for omitting such issues on packaging from its waste strategy.
Mr Sayeed then announced a waste strategy which he had been working on over the past year, which “would penalise producers of waste packaging, especially relating to packaging that is difficult to deal with.” By this he referred to items that would “not biodegrade easily” and “did not encourage good environmental practice.”
Regulation failure
Essex county councillor and chair of the LGA waste committee, Councillor Twitchen, said packaging recycling regulations were already in place, but said these did not always spell efficiency. She cited the example of supermarket plastic bags. She said that “previously, supermarket bags were of 25 microns thick of plastic, but now this has been reduced to 5 milligrams.” She said this reduction in the amount of packaging used was not necessarily environmentally better because “the bags are now composed of a mix of polymers that are not biodegradable or recyclable”, and this, she said “has created an environmental nightmare.”
She suggested what needs to be done is a scheme similar to that introduced in Ireland which endorsees a plastic bag tax on shoppers.
Deposit scheme
Another delegate who worked for a soft drinks supplier said schemes such as the returnable bottle scheme was something which should be encouraged. But, he said the problem was the retailers “who demanded they throw their bottles away”.
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