WRAP – the Waste and Resources Action Programme – held a high-level conference today in which over members of the retail, packaging and recycling chain discussed opportunities for using more recycled PET in retail packaging.
– Dr Karel Wendl, The Coca-Cola Company
The well-attended conference, held in central London, highlighted the “huge” interest among UK retailers and their packaging suppliers in reducing packaging waste, raising recycling levels and using more recycled material.
It saw the government-funded recycling development organisation informing retailers that the climate is now right in this country to commit to using recovered PET in food-grade packaging.
Chief executive Jennie Price praised retailers including Asda, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Tesco for recent commitments made to improving their environmental impacts.
She said: “There is never a guarantee that any of this will include packaging, but almost every one of them has a major commitment to improve their use of packaging. Everyone involved in the packaging chain is being asked 'what are you doing about recycling, and using recycled content?'”
Collections
One of the major barriers towards using more recycled PET in UK food packaging has been the availability of food-grade recovered PET. Current demand is at about 60,000 tonnes a year, but supply is only at 12,000 tonnes.
But WRAP told retailers and the packaging sector that household collections of plastic bottles were set to double, partly thanks to a national television advertising campaign planned for later this year.
WRAP hopes to see as much as 200,000 tonnes of plastic bottles – of which 45% would be PET – being recycled in the UK each year by 2008.
Paul Davidson, materials manager for plastics at WRAP, also noted that major new reprocessing infrastructure is being developed – with some plants anticipated to come online in the next 12 months.
Mr Davidson insisted that rising virgin plastics prices and softening demand for UK plastics from China meant the economic climate was now right for reprocessing PET in this country.
Environment
Concerning the environmental benefits of recycling plastic bottles, Mr Davidson said over 60 life cycle analysis studies reviewed by WRAP had shown recycling was “clearly” better than incineration or landfill. The exception, he added, was for heavily-contaminated plastic bottles requiring strenuous washing to be recycled, in which he said studies suggested incineration could be the best environmental option.
Commenting on the 85% of plastic bottles currently going to landfill or incinerators, Mr Davidson said: “With one tonne of plastic bottles recycled saving more than 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide – in fact, it's nearer two tonnes of CO2 – we have no business burying or burning plastic bottles.”
Coca-Cola
In a conference seeking to answer retailers' and brand owners' technical questions and to address any myths about using recovered PET in packaging, a top scientist from Coca-Cola said his company had been using it in various countries across the globe since 1991.
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Dr Karel Wendl, principle engineer at Coca-Cola's Global Packaging Platform, said there were now 55 different technologies approved by the US government for recycling PET into food-grade packaging.
“Using recycled PET has been sometimes painful to get started, but now that collections are getting much better it's very encouraging. In our case we have been using recycled plastics in direct food contact applications safely, using multiple technologies, in 13 countries over 16 years. So far, we have not had any market quality issues,” he said.
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