Design talk with Steve Kelsey: The problem with Defra’s Packaging Strategy

Stonehenge itself is a remarkable piece of engineering. Its precision was brought about by the druids’ need to measure time. This enabled them to tell the tribes when to sow the seed and when to harvest the crop, as well as marking the many religious ceremonies that occurred during the year.

Stonehenge was a mathematical device that provided the foundation for a civilisation.

Naturally, this brings me to the recently released Defra Packaging Strategy. There is much that is welcome in this document. The proposal to ban key materials from landfill is a positive step, as is the recognition that retrieving energy from waste is a sensible option.

I was encouraged by the proposed re-education of the local authorities to consider ‘waste’ as a resource and can only hope this will lead to a revision of the PRN system, which is overdue an overhaul.

I was on the brink of slapping on the wode and prancing in the Mews when I read the proposal to voluntarily trial carbon targets ahead of the proposed 2014 revision to the Packaging Waste Directive, but a thought occurred…

You see, the difference between the Druids and Defra is that the druids had an agreed method of measurement and a finely engineered device to help them. Defra doesn’t. 

This year, I have had the privilege of working with a group of very capable people reviewing LCA-based tools for the Packaging Recycling Action Group. To cut a long story short, we learnt that even when you use precisely the same
data different tools would give you different answers.

This result was echoed by an independent study by the Institute for Applied Ecology for a consumer group in Holland, which established there were fundamental problems with the LCA approach.

In short, they are not accurate enough. PAS2050 is supposed to resolve this problem by giving us all a fixed methodology. However, I am not at all convinced that if you use different tools within PAS2050 you get a comparable answer.

Surely, if we are going to make massive changes to our infrastructure and change the way we produce, we need to be able to measure the result. There is still much work to do.

Steve Kelsey is strategic innovations director at PI Global. Send comments for Steve to packagingnews.editorial@haymarket.com

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