UK government’s recycling failures jeopardize plastic tax compliance, warns Schur’s sales manager

30 May 2022 --- The UK government must establish a nationally-unified recycling system and invest in chemical recycling to give businesses a realistic chance of complying with the new UK Plastic Packaging Tax, according to Schur Star Systems sales manager Ian Weston.

Speaking to PackagingInsights at Packaging Innovations 2022 in Birmingham, UK, last week, Weston also called for a more balanced debate around the role of plastic food packaging in modern society and criticized the BBC for pedaling shallow anti-plastic sentiment.

“The problem is Boris Johnson did an interview on TV and said ‘plastic is terrible.’ The government may well be informed, but it’s misinformed on what it should be doing to improve recycling,” he says.

“And the BBC is all about how bad plastic is – it’s not giving the whole argument. If you look at it as an overall product for what’s on the market, it’s very good.”

Schur can offer its customers the necessary 30% recycled content in its plastic pouches to comply with the tax. However, Weston says the low availability of clean recyclate is pushing costs to unreasonable levels and encouraging businesses to pay the tax instead – an issue echoed widely at the UK’s biggest packaging trade show.

An unreasonable tax?
Most packaging manufacturers are struggling to source enough clean plastic recyclate to meet the tax’s requirements. Weston says this low availability is due to a lack of certification and guarantee that the recycled food-grade plastic originates from a clean source.

“We can offer post-industrial or post-consumer content, but our customers are looking for post-industrial rather than post-consumer content because you can’t guarantee where the post-consumer content has come from.”Schur exhibiting it’s end-to-end machinery and packaging capabilities at Packaging Innovations 2022.

“It would be a massive help to the industry if the government recognized chemical recycling but also if they would invest in it. I think we have one chemical recycling plant in the UK – we need two dozen of them.”

“But we also need some form of ‘normal’ for recycling. We have 333 councils in the UK and not two of them have the same recycling policy. Let’s get some uniformity across the country to give people a better idea of how to recycle and manufacturers something they can aim at.”

“I had a customer place a really large order of bags a month or two back, and the recycled content made the order around 300% more expensive than paying the plastic tax based on the volume he was buying. He opted for the plastic tax.”

The tax places a £200 (US$253) per metric ton levy on producers or importers of plastic packaging not containing 30% recycled plastic content.

Don’t forget food waste
Weston recalls a time when food waste was a more pressing issue than plastic pollution and how the development of plastic packaging solutions was pivotal to reducing this climate change problem.

“I think it was back in 1985 when the government said we need to reduce food waste because the problem was so huge and plastic was then developed more and reduced the food waste mountains by about 80% – we should be looking at this benefit again now.”

“Unfortunately, people like the BBC are still throwing a lot of negativity about plastic and not an equal argument of its benefits.”Weston stresses that a lack of recycling uniformity between the UK’s 333 councils is damaging circular economy ambitions.

“If plastic was invented today, it would be seen as a miracle. A lot of the people who are shouting that plastic is bad weren’t around in the 80s when it was developed to create all of these solutions and, had they been, they would be looking at it in a different way.”

The big carbon debate
In the drive for greater sustainability in packaging, too much focus is often given to end-of-life disposal rather than net environmental impact. Weston points out that recycling paper – despite being important – uses an “extortionate” amount of water, while the carbon footprint of cleaning that water is “phenomenal.”

“The carbon footprint of producing glass and wood is also phenomenal,” he continues. “However, plastic has a relatively low carbon footprint even through recycling, and chemical recycling has proven it’s a low carbon material – so why is the government not investing in it? It frustrates me.”

“And the fact that it appears they’re not looking at chemical recycling and coming out with silly comments like ‘recycling doesn’t work’ annoys me.”

In October, UK Prime minister Boris Johnson riled up the plastics recycling industry by claiming plastics recycling “doesn’t work” and “doesn’t begin to address the [pollution] problem.” Johnson instead suggested, “we’ve all got to cut down our use of plastic.”

“When you look at plastic pouches against PET tubs, the pouch tends to be lighter than the PET tubs, but with an empty pouch, you can maybe get 25,000-30,000 on a pallet, and with the tubs, you’re maybe getting 4,000 on the pallet,” adds Weston.

Schur showcased a new paper-based pouch with PE liner for low-barrier applications at the event.“So if you’re buying seven million tubs a year compared to seven million pouches, you’re looking at several thousand extra lorries on the road. The carbon footprint of that difference is humongous and people aren’t looking at that – they’re just looking at ‘plastic is bad.’”

Schur’s new paper pouch
Schur’s primary focus remains on the development of flexible plastic packaging solutions. However, it also showcased a new paper-based pouch with PE liner at Packaging Innovations 2022 for low-barrier requirements.

Weston says this expansion made sense as Schur has several cartonboard factories across Europe and a paper base from its machines for newspapers.

“With the current environmental sustainability debate, people are obviously looking for curbside-collectable solutions and so, as a company, we have to look at being able to fulfill all particular markets,” he explains.

“Barrier paper is an environmentally sustainable option for some of our customers. Our new solution has a less than 5% thin PE liner, which gives all its sealing properties and offers a small barrier – but it is only a very small barrier.”

By Joshua Poole