GOOD PLASTIC, BAD PLASTIC

Taking the food industry as an example, the use of plastics provides businesses with the ability to cut costs and minimise their carbon footprint. Produce packed in plastics increases shelf life, resulting in reduced food waste, and the reduced weight and bulk of plastic compared to heavier packaging materials reduces the number of heavy goods vehicles on our roads. All of this reduces the invisible pollution associated with the production and distribution of goods.

It is, however, plastic that is the most visible form of pollution when it is discarded. A 2018 WHICH study found that between 12% (Morrisons) and 22% (Lidl) of supermarket plastic packaging was not recyclable. This is still a significant amount of waste considering that experts believe UK supermarkets create about 800,000 tonnes of plastic every year. The incoherent recycling infrastructure also means that even recyclable plastics are ending up in landfill.

Many businesses are therefore looking at ways to move away from plastic packaging or adopting long term strategies to review their use of plastics.
However, the use of seemingly more environmentally friendly packaging materials can actually create an increased carbon footprint. For example, paper bags generate 50 times more water pollutants and 70 percent more air pollutants during production than plastic bags.
Long term initiatives such as Wraps EU vision 2020 and Plastic Pact aim to eliminate consumption of unnecessary single use plastics and to make 100% of plastic reusable, recyclable or compostable. This would appear to the better solution and businesses declaring their allegiance can be seen to be taking action. However, this kind of change takes time and until the government intervenes and places the infrastructures in place to allow them to work, then nothing can really change.

Until the circular economy for plastics is improved, plastics – even recyclable plastic, will continue to reach landfill. It is essential that the industry has a strategy but at the moment that is totally lacking so what is the responsible client to do? Macpac have collaborated with our extrusion partner to introduce Breakdown PET – a material which is fully recyclable and biodegradable which provides an end of life solution to plastic which is discarded in landfill where it will naturally decompose in less than a decade rather than centuries.
While the fight to improve the circular economy continues, Breakdown PET offers a solution for the mounting issue and most visible form of pollution right now – that of discarded plastic and allows us to use plastic with a clear conscience.