Simplify packaging to increase recycling levels, advises First Mile CEO

11 Sep 2019 --- PackagingInsights speaks to Bruce Bratley, Founder and CEO of First Mile, from the floor of Packaging Innovations 2019 in London. An entrepreneur as well as an environmentalist at heart, Bratley founded First Mile on the principle of making it easy and affordable for businesses to maximize recycling rates while simultaneously minimizing their environmental impact. In this interview, Bratley discusses First Mile’s progressive recycling services and gives his views on packaging design, the UK government’s waste consultations, the effects of Brexit on waste management and more.

You will be taking part in a panel discussion on compostable packaging at Packaging Innovations 2019 later today. What is your stance on compostables?
Bratley: My key takeaway is that compostable packaging is a material invention that poses issues for the recycling industry. The recycling industry is not ready to process it yet. The manufacturers can say “100 percent recyclable” on pack, but the infrastructure isn’t in place to recycle these new materials.

How would you describe First Mile?
Bratley: First Mile is a purpose-led organization that aims to increase recycling levels for businesses. We offer recycling services to help companies recycle more packaging, print paper and cardboard, whether they are retail, hospitality or offices. We want to have a positive impact on the environment and keep materials in the circular economy. Our Sacktory pre-sorting facility uses a number of technological innovations from tracking waste through to additional services that separate more types of waste, all to achieve higher recycling rates.

First Mile has a zero-to-landfill policy. What are the main challenges of this?
Bratley: The main challenge is the complexity of the supply chain and that a lot of the waste is coming from increasingly complicated packaging materials. This packaging can be recyclable in its own right, but there are so many different types that sorting is difficult.

How would you like to see packaging simplified?
Bratley: We need fewer types of plastics, so we go down to a limited number of polymers. I’d also like to see packaging designers and manufacturers working with the end-of-life supply chain to ensure that the new products in the marketplace have a very high level of recyclability.

What should the first goal of packaging design be?
Bratley: Minimization should be the first goal. If we don’t have it in the first place, it won’t cause us a problem. At the same time, plastic packaging is necessary because the packaging is usually preventing product wastage during manufacturing and increasing shelf-life. Still, packaging can be minimized in terms of its complexity or the number of layers, the number of boxes used to package things or the shape of the pack.

What can you tell us about First Mile’s RecycleLab?
Bratley: The RecycleLab allows us to work with innovators, universities and businesses to find ways to recycle hard-to-recycle waste streams – often packaging. If a material can’t go through our regular mixed recycling service, we encourage businesses to send it to us in our post-back service Recycle Box and then we can look for new ways to recycle it. Success stories include our work with KeyKeg on its single-use beer keg packaging. We created a closed-loop solution so that the key kegs get recycled back into a component or new key kegs – it has been a big success. We are also working with lots of companies in the coffee sector. We have found solutions to coffee cup recycling but also coffee pod and coffee grounds recycling.

What are your views on the UK government’s recent waste management consultations?
Bratley: The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is for me the most interesting of the waste management strategies. It’s about pulling the producers of materials into the cost-benefit side of end-of-life and making them much more aware of it. We’ve had EPR for packaging for 20 years now – it’s been very cheap and produced bad unintended consequences, such as the exporting of plastic packaging to developing countries. So I welcome the idea of overhauling the whole producer responsibility area.

In general, the plastics tax is a good idea. There are a lot of difficulties in terms of making imports of plastics that don’t have to have the recycled content competitive, and what plastics the tax applies to, but I think overall it’s a good idea because we do need to encourage demand for recycled plastics. Still, a better approach might be to have zero-rated VAT on any material with a high degree of recycled content in it – that might be a more efficient way of increasing the demand.

The Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is also strong, but we need to make sure we don’t cannibalize the existing recycling efforts. At the moment, we are recycling 46 percent of plastic bottles and the government needs to be certain that that’s going to increase significantly by introducing the DRS. If in five years we aren’t recycling at higher levels then it won’t have been a good outcome.

How can the cost-effectiveness and availability of rPET be improved?
Bratley: It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I think rPET is going to be more expensive until we get the supply chains established. I always have sympathy for companies whose cost base goes up because there is a lot of inflation around, but if manufacturers want to have the benefits of sustainable packaging they need to invest in the supply chain. Otherwise, we are at risk of being forced to use other materials which will be bad for manufacturers on a cost basis, but also from a carbon perspective, because the embedded carbon of plastic is relatively low compared to paper or glass or cardboard.

What effects might Brexit have on UK waste management?
Bratley: It will affect it in several ways. We may end up with a slow down, or even a recession in the economy, which is going to restrict investment as there will be less appetite for taking risks. In terms of international markets, there will be pros and cons really because we export a lot of material for recycling into Europe. It will become more difficult to export waste for incineration due to less porous and stickier borders. On the plus side, if the pound continues to be weak, UK exports of recyclable materials will be more competitive internationally because we’ve got a devalued currency. There are a few pluses but not many. It’s a case of whether the economy keeps any momentum or not but I fear it may not. 

How did you decide on the company name “First Mile?”
Bratley: We do “the first mile” in the waste management supply chain by collecting from businesses and taking the recycling on to the next step in the journey. What we do is often the most difficult part of the supply chain – we are doing the hardest work.

By Joshua Poole