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Waging war on packaging

July 30, 2010

Waste bosses in Wokingham are to write to the Environment Secretary to ask what is being done to pressurise retailers to reduce inappropriate packaging.

This is one of the measures being taken by Wokingham Borough Council as it seeks to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill.

At a council meeting on Thursday, Councillor Gary Cowan, executive member for the environment, was asked by his Liberal Democrat counterpart and ward member for Loddon, Cllr Sue Smith, what plans are in place to expand the range of materials which can be recycled locally.

Although Cllr Cowan is due to send a written response to Cllr Smith, as she did not attend the meeting, he had previously explained the issues in a letter which appeared in last week’s Wokingham Times.

In responding to a reader’s letter about the limited amount of plastics which can be collected in the borough, the ward member for Arborfield explained what can be recycled is hindered by the “unavailability of sustainable UK markets for non-bottle mixed plastics”.

He did reveal, however, the council has secured a contract with Grundon Waste Management to supply its plant in Colnbrook with around 20,000 tonnes of waste, which will be used to produce energy.

Cllr Cowan wrote: “This will enable us to reduce Wokingham’s landfill from 60 per cent in 2008/09 to 40 per cent in 2010/11, while generating green energy.

“We were also able to increase our recycling in 2009/10 to 38.4 per cent from 36.6 per cent in 2008/09, which is one of the best recycling rates in the country and an amazing increase thanks to our residents’ willingness to recycle.”

The reason for writing to the Secretary of State, according to Cllr Cowan, were so the council could show its frustration and to find out more about what is being done to secure sustainable long-term UK outlets for those plastics which currently cannot be recycled.

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I agree. The extra packaging is all of the type that councils won't take to be recycled. Chicken in solid platic cases with plastic film over the top, placed in a little plastic bag when you get to the checkout, and then put in a carrier bag to take home. Pizza sitting on a polystyrene base, surrounded by a plastic bag, inside a cardboard box, and put in a carrier bag to take home. Only the cardboard and carrier bags are recycled by our council, although most of the rest is actually recyclable.

It would be nice if the council actually accepted more of the different types of plastic. It would also be better if the targets for recycling on the council were not set against the recyclables *collected* and instead set against the recyclables *recycled*. If waste is collected as part of the recycled waste, but put back into the landfill waste because there is no current capacity to recycle, this is counted as "recycled" for the stats. So how much of the 38.4% of waste "recycled" was actualy returned to landfill? We'll never know.

Please can they also ask what can be done to reduce the amount of plastic bags that are posted through my door. I've almost cut out the use of plastic bags when I go shopping, as I've been asked and encouraged to do for perfectly valid environmental reasons, and I've bought some of those excellent reusable fabric bags from our leading supermarket. I'll even get my money back through green loyalty points.

But I now get, on average, two to three plastic bags posted through my door every single week asking for old clothes and brick-a-brack for charity (although the clothes are scrapped as rags, the collectors are companies that are run at a profit, and the charities only get a very small percentage of the profits). But however much I dislike these "charity" collections for their apparent lack of honesty, these bags total more plastic than I ever used from the supermarket. I can't even use them all as rubbish bags because I don't use more than one bag per week, sometimes even less, and some are slightly too small to fit my bin (plus I prefer to use the biodegradable ones anyway).

I just can't stop these bags being put through my door, and they won't collect the empty bags back again (despite saying they will on the bags themselves). Can anyone help on this?

mavdo, Wokingham
30/07/2010 at 17:37

Seems to me that only packaging which can be sustainably recycled should be permitted in the UK. We really should not be in a position of having to build specialist recycling plants so that manufacturers can choose the lowest cost packaging material while ignoring the resulting landfill costs.