Trading standards call for tougher laws on excess packaging

The call came as it was revealed that just four companies have been prosecuted for using too much packaging in the eight years since legislation was put in place to stop it.

Office World was one of just four companies successfully prosecuted for over-packaging examples like this

Officers within local authorities, who have the responsibility to tackle over-packaging, said there were “too many loopholes” in the regulations on excess packaging, and that maximum fines were too low at 5,000 to provide a deterrent.

Responding to the calls today, the packaging industry said that tougher legislation should, perhaps, be directed at retailers, since packaging firms provide their products to specifications required by the supermarkets.

Taxpayers
Around five million tonnes of packaging ends up in the household waste stream each year, with local authority chiefs warning that it will cost taxpayers 4.8 billion to deal with over the next six years.

The Local Authorities Coodinators of Regulatory Services – LACORS – said serious fines are needed for council trading standards services to successfully regulate household packaging.

Cllr Geoffrey Theobold, LACORS chairman, said: “Packaging waste increased by 12% from 1999 to 2005, and if this trend continues it will cost taxpayers millions each year to get rid of, damage the environment and contribute to climate change.”

Prosecutions
The record of prosecutions for over-packaging under the UK's Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations includes the 2,000 fine imposed on Office World in Northampton for using too much packaging to sell small items via its website in 2003 and 2004 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Three other cases brought by trading standards officers led to a 1,000 fine for a butcher in Northamptonshire, a 5,000 fine for Burton's Foods in Cambridgeshire and a 500 fine for vegetable ingredients company Nadia Luciani in Oldham.

LGA
The Local Government Association said it was hard for trading standards to prove in court that packaging is unnecessary when companies claim the need the packaging for marketing purposes.

Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “The fact that there have only been four successful prosecutions in the UK demonstrates the law simply isn’t working. Local authority trading standards services find their hands tied by regulations which allow retailers to defend excessive packaging claiming it is what the customer wants or that it is required for the purposes of marketing.

” It's the retailers that specify the packaging used for household products – they are the ones that have the power to determine how much is used. “
– Dick Searle, Packaging Federation
“There’s no incentive for manufacturers to cut down on packaging. Tougher laws must close the loopholes. Equally a maximum fine of 5,000 is a drop in the ocean for big companies. Only serious fines will act as a genuine deterrent to over-packaging,” Lord Bruce-Lockhart added.

Packaging industry
Dick Searle, chief executive of the Packaging Federation told letsrecycle.com today he did not have a problem with tougher laws against genuine cases of excess packaging. But, he suggested that the amount of packaging used to sell goods was largely the responsibility of retailers – some of whom, like Asda, are putting recycling containers in place for shoppers to deposit supposedly &#39e;xcess' packaging.

He said: “It's the retailers that specify the packaging used for household products – they are the ones that have the power to determine how much is used. Items like the Gillette razor, for example – that packaging is what retailers want in order to display it on their shelves.”

Mr Searle also pointed out that if shoppers did not buy goods they considered to be using too much packaging, retailers would not stock them. “Excess packaging is in the eye of the beholder: if you don't want that Easter egg, give your grandkids a chocolate bar for Easter.”

The Packaging Federation chief executive said the issue of packaging was not well-understood generally in this country, and that because of it, food waste within the supply chain was now “virtually unheard of”.

He said: “Food waste is eight to 10 times more of a problem than packaging waste – if 20% of the average bin is food waste, that going to landfill would represent the equivalent energy lost as 35 million tonnes of packaging going to landfill.”