Plastic pollution continues to make the headlines, and it is easy to blame the plastic industry for its cause. The origin of this however, is improper waste management that has made plastic pollution a worldwide problem. It is seen therefore, as a widespread environmental issue but it needs to be recognised this is caused by many interconnected causes, all of which contribute to the perceived problems, such as:
- Inappropriate Manufacturing Process.
- Single-Use Plastic
- Fishing Nets and Equipment
- Plastic Products and Toys
- PET Plastic Bottles
- Unacceptable Dumping.
Most recently the focus has been at the UN discussions in Busan, South Korea, where the International Plastics Treaty 2024 was supposed to deliver the first-ever global legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. Agreement though could not be reached, and negotiations were suspended to resume in 2025.
Media coverage of plastics has a lengthy history with the documentaries Plastic Planet in 2009, and Plastic Oceans in 2012. Sir David Attenborough’s documentaries Blue Planet and Blue Planet II again raised the impact of plastic on our environment, but he has also stated:
“So, as strange as it may sound, I would encourage people to treat plastic with respect, because if it escapes into the environment, it will remain there for a very long time. If you don’t need it, don’t use it, and if you do use it, be mindful of where you put it”.
Media coverage is complicating the understanding of plastic waste due to the terminology employed e.g. plastics, plastics pollution, marine plastics/debris/litter, microplastics etc. and more and more companies are opting for plastic substitutes to placate the public backlash to their reporting, but are these ’solutions’ really more friendly to the environment? Because of these considerations, we are seeing an increase in metal and cardboard being used for drink and liquid containers, two examples of these are Cano Water, Tetra Pack and disposable coffee cups.
Cano Water was founded in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic waste they felt was damaging the environment, citing plastic water bottles as one of the largest found pieces of litter on beaches, and so the brand created its resealable aluminium packaging to combat this issue. Aluminium cans might indeed mean less ocean waste (if disposed of correctly), but they come with their own eco-price: the production of each can pumps about twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as each plastic bottle. Aluminium cans have a thin plastic liner that buffers the liquid from the metal. This is an example of the beverage industry scrambling to react to public anger over perceived scenes of huge piles of plastic waste contaminating oceans, pledging to step up recycling efforts. So the question remains is this a viable solution to replace plastic?
Tetra Pak also has a sustainability issue even though they are replacing plastic bottles in our supermarkets again as companies attempt to reduce or eliminate plastic packaging. This is a complex composites of plastic-lined cardboard and are generally made up of 14% plastic sheets, 5% aluminium, 6% from a bio-plastic cap and 75% cardboard. When it comes to Tetra carton the combination of the different materials makes recycling much more complex. The paper fibres need to be washed out before the aluminium and polyethylene can be separately recycled. This requires specialist equipment and inputs like water and energy, many recycling centres are not equipped for these processes. According to the Tetra Pak website, it’s 100% recyclable. The problem is, it’s 100% recyclable only when you send it to recyclers with the machinery to handle them. Unfortunately, not every recycler has the ability to recycle the cartons.
Disposable coffee cups are another challenge. The cups are coated inside with a thin plastic film to avoid leaks and maintain the heat of our drink. This makes cups notoriously difficult to recycle as it is difficult to separate the paper from the plastic. They also tend to have residual liquid in them, making their collection difficult and dirty. Research by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) suggests that less than 1% of disposable coffee cups are recycled in the UK. This means that the majority end up in landfills or as litter in the environment, where they take hundreds of years to decompose.
A report from Denkstatt stated that if plastic packaging would be substituted by other materials,
- the respective packaging mass would on average increase by a factor of 3.6
- life-cycle energy demand would increase by a factor of 2.2 or by 1,240 million GJ per year, which is equivalent 27 Mt of crude oil in106 VLCC tankers or comparable to 20 million heated homes
- GHG emissions would increase by a factor of 2.7 or by 61 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents per year, comparable to 21 million cars on the road or equivalent to the CO2-emissions of Denmark.
Effect of substitution of selected plastic packaging on masses, energy demand and GHG emissions – Source Denkstatt report ‘The impact of plastic packaging on life cycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe’
The main reasons for these results are:
- Plastic packaging usually provides the same function with significantly less material mass per functional unit. In most cases this leads to less production energy and GHG emissions per functional unit than for the mix of alternative materials
- Benefits in the use-phase (e.g. prevented food losses, less energy for transportation) are also a relevant contribution to the result (see figures below)
- The net-benefits of recycling and recovery of plastic packaging are often higher than for alternative materials, because most of the recycling benefits of alternative materials are already included in the datasets for production, where relevant shares of recycled raw material are included.
Packaging does not have the best reputation amongst consumers, even though it helps to protect food and ensures the best possible quality by the time it reaches us. Only when the benefits of
packaging are recognised will it be positively accepted. Reducing or eliminating packaging does not always lead to an overall improvement: sometimes, even more packaging is beneficial. Packaging does not have the best reputation amongst consumers, even though it helps to protect food and ensures the best possible quality by the time it reaches us. Only when the benefits of packaging are recognised will it be positively accepted. Eliminating packaging does not always lead to an overall improvement, sometimes even more packaging is beneficial. Data and facts versus image and perception. Negative attitude towards food packaging among consumer, food is often perceived as over packaged. We need to make the consumer more aware of the functionality of packaging and the problem of food waste.
Greenhouse gas benefits due to prevented food losses as a result of using plastic packaging to protect fresh food are at least equivalent to 37 % of production emissions of all investigated plastic packaging (Denkstatt (2011)).
Ultimately every piece of rubbish that we find on our streets, out in the environment and our oceans is one piece too many. However, maybe the media should be much more critical of governments, corporations and people who state that creating a sustainable, equitable and inclusive world is a priority to them. Is it really? What is our government doing to invest in infrastructure for recycling? Has the G7 made recycling and reuse as the number one priority of the G7?
What do you think? Is the media coverage of plastic waste a distraction or helpful in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals https://www.globalgoals.org/goals/ ?
The obvious answer is that we all need to think – and I mean really think – about how we use and dispose of plastic. This also includes how we use plastic and whether we can live without it.
Packaging is one of many areas where plastic makes a difference. It is used in automotive and aerospace industries to reduce weight, the NHS could not operate without plastics, consumer items are more affordable, its used in plastic pipes for its durability, without elastomers we would not have car tyres. These are just a few of the areas where plastic has made a difference. It was posed recently at The Ralph Anderson Lecture that developments in human civilisation, by materials discovered and exploited has led us into the Plastics Age.
At the Horners we are actively promoting positive initiatives to help shift perception away from negativity in the media. We work with industry and education to recognise that plastic materials and products offer versatile, sustainable, low-carbon solutions for manufacturing in the 21st Century.
Polymers – we can’t live without them. We therefore need to use them for advantageous benefits they provide as key modern materials. We need to avoid poor usage and waste of such precious resources.
Richard Brown, Chair of Polymer Committee,
The Worshipful Company of Horners