So research by Tetra Pak shows that 55% of people bin recyclable waste.
But is anybody surprised? What is recyclable waste anyway? How can we expect consumers to know when we can’t even tell them? The best we can do is ‘Widely recycled’, which means collected at kerbside in at least 65% of local authorities. So that could actually mean not collected by up to 35% of local authorities. And what does ‘Check local recycling’ mean? Is there any actual information in that statement?
So firstly we don’t make recycling packaging at home very straightforward. As younger consumers grow up with recycling as second nature that will matter less. But we could still do better.
Then what happens to the waste once it’s collected? I’ve overheard people at the recycling point say it all gets shipped to China where it just gets dumped anyway. True or not, it seems we’re not really giving anyone confidence that this collected waste is actually getting recycled. If people can’t don’t have trust in the system then they’re not going to invest in the time to ‘Check local recycling’ or to separating out their packaging waste for collection.
In the UK there were 9.5 billion PET soft drinks bottles sold in 2010. I know we don’t recycle them all as I pass several discarded in the street every time I walk home. Hmm. Littering. Now that’s a rant for another day.
Benjamin Punchard is head of packaging research at Euromonitor International
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There’s a whole lot more information in the “widely recycled” and “check local recycling” than in what we had before. One of the problems is that the availability of recycling is a moving target. Other constraints are the availability of space on pack and the challenge of communicating quickly and concisely. It wouldn’t be possible to list the local authorities who will recycle a pack because a) it woud be a long list, and b) it would be out of date as soon as it was printed.
It’s very easy to criticise from the sidelines. It’s much more difficult to come up with labelling that is clear, concise, and that works.
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I know there are still issues with the recycling logos and descriptions, and probably more could be done, but as Ian says it’s much better than where we were and it is a step in the right direction.
I think the bigger problem is that the consumer really needs to believe that what they recycle will really make a difference. I believe there needs to be more publicity given to what happens to the material which is recycled. If consumers felt they really were making a difference then there would be more buy it.
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Hi Iain, You’re right – this is (much) better than what we’ve had before. And of course a list of what councils do what is out of the question. But are there really councils that don’t recycle cartons board? Can’t we get at least a core few pack types up to ‘Definately recycled everywhere’? Now that’s a far more positive message!
Hi Jane, Again you’re right. When consumers feel they are making a difference that’s when they start to invest emotionally and start to actually do the recycling that they previously only half heartedly thought about. Well that or massive taxes on domestic waste collection but I’d prefer a carrot to a stick.
But can’t we think outside the box? So may people have smartphones in the UK. Stick on a QR code. The consumer scans this and it takes them to a website. The phone has a location finder so the website knows exactly where the consumer is. It then tells them if that pack type is collected by the council in that area or not (removing the whole ‘might be’ thing) AND provides a map to local recycling facilities with details of how to get there from where the consumer is standing at that point. All this for just a small black and white square printed on the pack.
Just a thought…
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