Excess packaging – a response from the LGA

PORTER: PACKAGING HAS ITS HEAD IN THE BUBBLE WRAP

Dear Mr Kelsey

I am writing as the incoming chairman of the LGA’s Environment Board to address the claims in your recent open letter to us saying you cannot understand why we continue to draw public attention to the huge costs and inconvenience excessive packaging places on consumers and council taxpayers.

For my part, I find it very easy to understand why someone of your prominence in the packaging industry is rattled about a campaign which is successfully drawing this issue out of the twilight of technicality and spin it has inhabited for too long.

The reason we and the people we represent are bothered about packaging is simple. Council tax payers have to find £40 a tonne in landfill tax this year (and face big hikes in future years) for every tonne of consumer packaging which finds its way into the general waste stream.

During the recession, councils are experiencing severe budgetary pressures because of higher demand for services and falling income. Indeed, in the current climate, local authorities are looking at every means possible to save money and boosting recycling rates would represent a quick win. Cost aside, my constituents understand a lot better than you appear to that our environment can no longer bear the pointless cost of producing and then throwing away scarce materials.

It is time for the packaging industry to take its head out of the bubble wrap. You make the claim that the Courtauld Commitment and other initiatives have virtually banished excessive packaging from supermarket shelves. However, when councils are out on the street picking up the bins every week they continue to hear people’s complaints about the packaging they are forced to take home from the supermarket.

The three obstacles to improving recycling rates that you describe are all linked to a lack of waste infrastructure, an issue which local authorities are continually working with the private sector to address. Councils want to provide better recycling services and find ways to convert more waste it into useful resources.

The cost of this infrastructure is a major barrier to further progress being made, a barrier that could be overcome were the producers of packaging to pay more towards its disposal. Councils are ready and willing to play their part in building waste infrastructure fit for the 21st century.

Contrary to your assertion that we are not interested in a serious debate, I can say we are and it is time the packaging industry ceased counter-productive attacks on our motives and gets down to just that.

Yours sincerely
Cllr Gary Porter

KELSEY: DEBATE MUST FOCUS ON FACT, NOT EMOTION

Dear Cllr Porter

Firstly, may I congratulate you on your appointment as chairman of the LGA’s Environment Board and thank you for replying to my letter.

You say you would now be interested in serious debate about the problems we all face and I take you at your word. You assert councils are ready, willing and able to build a waste infrastructure fit for the 21st century and I applaud that. However talking about future intentions is easy. I, like my colleagues in the industry, are far more focused on today’s reality than future promises.

I would like to respond to some of your points. It may be more comfortable to direct the debate towards emotionally charged topics and deride the industry for insisting on technically accurate replies. Yet facts are technical in nature. Here are some facts from which we should begin:

• Packaging is efficient and effective in doing its job, the protection of product;
• The use of packaging reduces product waste and the associated environmental impact of wasted product;
• Far more food is thrown away by consumers through choice than is lost through a failure of packaging performance. The impact of wasted food is at least 15 times greater than the impact of packaging waste;
• There was zero growth in packaging weight in the UK last year.

We can look at this from another point of view. I will persist with facts because facts reliably report performance:

• For many material groups, quality of recyclate is in decline
• For other material groups, recyclate supplies are virtually non-existent;
• In an attempt to correct this dreadful performance, Defra, via the Packaging Strategy, is considering banning glass and aluminium from landfill to force an increase in recycle rates.

One set of facts report a steadily improving performance, the other a less impressive record of accomplishment.

You complain about the £40-a-tonne landfill tax for packaging despite the fact that packaging forms just 3% by weight of landfill and just 18% of household waste. Why, then, target an industry responsible for such a small percentage of waste? I am forced to conclude it’s all about the money and the LGA perceives the packaging industry, largely because of public misconceptions and past political and media opportunism, as an easy target.

In my view, the LGA campaigns through appeals to emotion rather than fact because the facts do not support your claims. We must focus on facts. Like you, I genuinely look forward to a fresh start to the debate.

Yours sincerely
Steve Kelsey

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