Speaking at an event organised by the LGA in London – entitled ‘Is excessive packaging undermining the war on waste?’ – councillor Bettison said the excuse that packaging is required in some instances to protect the product and increase shelf life should not stop packaging reduction.
He said: “We do not know where the balance is to protect food but this must not delay packaging reduction.”
And, Cllr Bettison also called for a review of the laws surrounding excess packaging, claiming that only four companies had been prosecuted under the legislation.
“I’d like to see the loopholes in the law on excess packaging tightened up. It is a toothless tiger now as retailers can say that they need the packaging for competitive reasons,” he claimed.
At the same time, he called on retailers to “specify better use of recycled packaging”.
Problem
Cllr Bettison explained that around one fifth of the household waste stream was made up of packaging waste. He claimed that this type of waste was a problem for councils because there is little recycling capacity for plastic packaging waste in the UK so in many cases it has to be landfilled.
He added: “Waste levels stay the same, but costs are projected to double to £4 billion a year for councils.”
And, he said: “The unfortunate truth is that if all councils started to collect plastics there would be problems recycling it because there is nowhere for it to go.”
Morrisons
His comments came as the supermarket Morrisons launched two initiatives at the event which are aimed at reducing food waste.
Marc Bolland, chief executive of the Bradford-based retailer, told the event that his company was working hard to reduce packaging waste but believed that focusing on food waste prevention was even more important.
He said: “Packaging waste is 11 million tonnes a year and food waste is 12 million but food waste creates three times more carbon so it is much more impact-ful than packaging waste.”
In light of this, the supermarket launched its ‘Best Kept’ and ‘Great Taste Less Waste’ campaigns. The ‘Best Kept’ campaign is aimed at packaging products to ensure they keep for longer and the ‘Great Taste Less Waste’ project is aimed at educating its customers about preventing food waste
He said: “We want people to eat all of what they buy. The main problem we face is that 12 million tonnes of food waste is thrown away each year.”
Necessary
Mr Bolland argued that packaging of some foods, such as cucumbers, was necessary. He explained that a shrink-wrapped cucumber would keep for 14 days but one without wrapping would only last for three, which could lead to it being wasted.
Morrisons is conducting tests on a range of its produce to find out which products keep without packaging. It no longer shrink-wraps its peppers because it discovered that this fruit did not need it.
However Mr Bolland stressed that “we are fighting packaging strongly, but we have to fight packaging and food waste together.”
Compostable
The question of making all packaging compostable was also raised at the event. Cllr Bettison commented that all packaging being compostable was “his idea of heaven” and said it “seems to be something we need to be aiming for”.
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