COVID-19 has resulted in countless changes to our daily lives, but as lockdown restrictions gradually ease, can we seize the opportunity for stronger action to protect our planet and build a greener future? It’s vital that we work together to combat climate change, and support a circular economy where we re-use, re-manufacture, and recycle as much as possible.
This year was expected to herald significant change on the environmental front, not least in terms of recycling and waste management. The Environment Bill includes plans for local authorities to collect a consistent set of recyclable materials. These include weekly food waste collections, and simplification of the process. However, the bill is now, rightly, on hold, as we focus on combatting coronavirus.
From a practical viewpoint, our sacks, bags, and speciality products for the capture and containment of resources for recycling enable easy separation of materials and limit the chance of contamination, whilst having the lowest environmental impact.
Buyers need to look out for internationally recognised quality standards such as the UN standard for carriage of dangerous goods in bulk (clinical waste sacks), EN13432 for compostable and biodegradable packaging (This way, they’ll know that all the components, for example their food caddy liner or green waste bin liners, will biodegrade and compost as expected), and the Cleaning & Hygiene Suppliers Association (CHSA) Refuse Sack Standard for domestic waste sacks and recyclables.
Equally, most responsible producers of plastic will have systems in place to support recycling initiatives and offer to collect ‘waste’ packaging and other materials, helping to save and divert resources from landfill and supporting a circular economy. Our free, used polythene recovery service is one of the ways that we help our customers to be more resource efficient. It keeps valuable resources within the circular economy by returning clean polythene packaging to the production cycle. This helps with the recovery and recycling of materials in the UK, for re-use and re-distribution.
Used polythene is collected from our customers on a back-load basis, for recycling at our production facility, Cromwell Plastics Recycling. This means that no additional vehicle journeys are incurred, as we collect this material when we deliver our recycling products. Taking a more active role in sourcing good quality recycled material reduces the need for virgin polymers in line with the WRAP guidelines. Benefits for our customers include reduction of waste disposal costs and regular reporting of packaging returns for recycling.
We ensure that there is minimal packaging with our products, for example, by removing heavy cardboard outers and/or replacing with more resource-efficient, recyclable polythene packaging. This eliminates a significant volume of waste packaging, in line with extended producer responsibility. It also helps to reduce the pallet size and weight, cutting carbon emissions during production and transport. Less storage space is required too.
We all want to see the recovery, recycling, and reuse of all materials, so they don’t end up in landfill or in our oceans. In our desire to do the right thing, we should choose responsibly sourced materials with the lowest carbon footprint – including the lightweight plastics which have been so demonised by the media. The bigger concern is climate change, and we must avoid knee-jerk reactions that lead to resources being burnt through faster, using heavier and more polluting alternatives that use more energy and waste more food. We must, instead, become champions of resource efficiency and recycling best practice.