It is not hard to imagine the vast amount of packaging material that gets used in the UK every year. From the items that land on your firm’s doorstep to the sight of the inside of any distribution centre, the volume is huge, and that has implications for the environment.

Throwaway packaging is a major cause of landfill waste in the UK, not least as much of it is material that could be recycled but isn’t, while a lot of it is made from plastic or glass when it could be made from cardboard.

Ideally, all the bespoke packaging solutions on offer would use biodegradable materials, but even where this is not possible, the ideal would be to ensure that, at the very least, material is recycled and reused as much as possible and that end-of-life disposal avoids landfill.

Such an ideal is not merely laudable, but essential if the packaging industry is to be part of the solution to Britain’s waste management challenges, rather than part of the problem.

What Is The New Packaging Pact All About?

For that reason, the packaging industry has been working collectively in partnership with global non-governmental organisation WRAP on a plan to become more sustainable. The result is the new Packaging Pact.

Launched on April 22nd to coincide with Earth Day, the plan is designed to replace the ten-year UK Plastics Pact, which had concerned itself with the responsible use and recycling of plastic packaging. This goes further, acknowledging the importance of alternatives to plastic.

Indeed, the new pact will also include other materials, such as:

• Glass

• Paper

• Card

• Metal

This wider remit means sustainability is not just about avoiding plastic filling the oceans (although that remains very important), but dealing in other waste too. Over 100 UK firms have signed up to the pact, including leading retailers, producers and packaging companies.

Also on board are industry bodies such as the British Retail Consortium, The Food and Drink Federation, DEFRA and the British Beer and Pub Association.

What Are The Goals Of The Packaging Pact?

There are four interconnected goals that the pact aims to achieve:

• Optimised packaging, with less single-use packages and more recyclable packaging

• Scaling up reusable packaging production to facilitate a reduction in single-use packaging

• Support infrastructure investment to enable more of the right materials to be produced

• Harmonising data to make work on improving sustainability easier to plan and carry out

Commenting on the new pact, WRAP chief executive Catherine David said: “The UK Packaging Pact is a unique, complete system approach to unlocking packaging transitions across the value chain.”

The need for a co-ordinated, root-and-branch approach is clear. The World Bank’s third What A Waste report projected that a ‘business as usual’ approach could lead to a 50 per cent increase in global packaging waste by 2050, up by 3.86 billion tonnes.

In addition, the use of plastic comes with another problem because it is a petrochemical product, meaning crises over the supply and price of oil, such as that arising from the present Middle East conflict, will pose further challenges for the packaging sector.

This is a matter the first of the four sustainability goals may particularly concern itself with, by encouraging the use and further development of recyclable packaging to cut back on single-use plastic waste and cost.

How Bad Is Britain’s Plastic Waste Problem?

A recent UK-wide survey by environmental charity Everyday Plastic, called The Big Plastic Count, highlighted just how bad the plastic waste issue is at present:

• 59 per cent of plastic waste in the UK is burned in Britain

• 16 per cent is sent overseas

• Nine per cent ends up in landfill

• Only 16 per cent is recycled

These figures show how far the country is from the ideal of recycling all its plastic. Of course, this is not all about packaging waste, as it will include everyday plastic items that are thrown away instead of being put into the recycling bin, as well as non-recyclable plastic.

Nonetheless, a key finding was that 63 per cent of fruit and veg packaging was soft plastic, which is very hard to recycle on a large scale.

This is why Everyday Plastic argues that, while recycling more of the plastic we do have is part of the solution, it is better for far less of it to be produced in the first place. Clearly, the packaging sector can play its part and the Packaging Pact may be the vehicle for doing so.

The previous UK Plastics Pact managed to reduce unnecessary plastic in packaging by 99.8 per cent. Its successor may help eliminate plastic altogether in many packages. The use of cardboard, paper and other biodegradable, sustainable materials could be set to skyrocket.