We need to cut plastic waste: and supermarkets should lead
the way
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Most of us want to bring home less plastic, but shops don’t make
it easy to cut back – that’s why I’m starting a new campaign
Sat 8 Jun 2019 06.00 BST Last modified on Sat 8 Jun 2019
06.13 BST
Last year Theresa May announced that by the year 2043 the
government aimed to “eliminate all avoidable plastic waste”. It’s not soon
enough. Over the past 12 months, the alarm bells have been ringing and the Blue
Planet effect has got everyone’s attention. People want to see urgent action on
plastics from the government and big business, and they also want to know how
to take action themselves. And so, in a new series on BBC One, Anita Rani and I
look at what can be done, on both a micro and macro level, to save our planet
from the plastic menace.
There are, of course, simple changes we can make. A few
years ago in my War on Waste series I revealed that more than 2.5bn
plastic-lined paper cups are clogging up our waste system every year because
they can’t be recycled. Now most major cafe chains including Starbucks, Pret a
Manger and Caffè Nero offer discounts to customers who bring their own reusable
“keep cups”. We may also be on the brink of the widespread use of properly
recyclable disposable cups (though a keep cup is always the better option).
The supermarkets have
got to do their bit because we pick up a third of the plastic in our lives from
their shelves
The first episode of War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita
picks up where the last series left off as we look at the problem of plastic
water bottles. Every year Britain goes through almost 8bn of these bottles and,
despite the noise about single-use plastic, that number is increasing by 7% a
year. Like the keep cup, the refillable water bottle is a no-brainer for anyone
who wants to do their bit in the war on plastics. (And if you want some extra
motivation: a recent US study indicates that there are about 22 times more
microplastic particles in a litre of bottled water – that’s 88,000 – than in
average tap water.)
Eliminating single-use plastics in other parts of our lives
is less straightforward. We challenged the residents on a street in Bristol to
cut down on the amount of plastic they used. Some of them really pushed the
boundaries of what we can do now, including shopping at refill shops, using
soap shampoos instead of liquid ones in plastic bottles, and even swapping
plastic toothbrushes for something made from wood or bamboo. But what they all
wanted most was simply to come home with less plastic when they did their
regular supermarket shop. But the stores are not making that easy. Not only is
loosely sold produce vastly outnumbered by that which is heavily wrapped in
plastic, most of the naked stuff is considerably more expensive too.
Supermarkets are charging us extra for the privilege of doing the right thing.
That has to change. The whole culture of plastic use has to
change. And it has to recognise the true nature of this material – it is not
only amazingly malleable and versatile. It’s durable too. That is its strength
and it’s a strength we should play to. It makes no sense to use a material that
lasts for hundreds of years just for a few days or weeks. That is the essence
of single-use plastics. But if we repurpose plastic for durability and reuse,
we immediately begin to solve the problem.
Plastic waste inside
cargo containers in Port Klang, Malaysia, to be sent back to its country of
origin. Photograph: Fazry Ismail/EPA
So who dares to be different? Which big businesses are
stepping up? Earlier this week, Waitrose became the first major supermarket in
the country to formally try out a package-free shopping experience. In its
Oxford shop, customers are now able to fill their own containers – and
reusable, returnable containers supplied in-house – with products ranging from
fruit and veg, to wine and beer, to dry goods and cleaning products.
I visited Waitrose on day two of the launch – and it does
look good. The messages on their feedback board were enthusiastic, bordering on
ecstatic – yes, at last, thank God, give us more. Of course, it is a bit of a
worry that Waitrose is the one supermarket that is beloved of the
conscience-wracked middle classes. And this is just one out of 353 Waitroses,
and one out of thousands of UK supermarkets. When will the rest step up?
Waitrose is not completely alone. Iceland has pledged to be
plastic-free by 2023. It’s a bold and admirable target, quite deliberately
shaving 20 years off the hopelessly distant date in the government’s plan. And
Iceland looks serious about trying to achieve it, innovating with various
plant-based wraps and containers that are already in their freezers.
There is a concern here, though. Plant-based packaging and
compostables are mostly themselves being used as disposable wraps – which
perpetuate the single-use culture. That won’t work in the long-term. Imagine if
all the plastics in the supermarkets came from plants. Where exactly will we
find the space to grow these plants which aren’t even going to feed us? That’s
why “reduce through reuse” is the only viable mainstream solution.
Surely, now, most us are fed up with plastic, and fed up
with being made to feel bad about the amount of plastics we are throwing in our
bins. We must be ready to change our behaviour and adapt to a refill culture –
and if we are, then we have the right to demand a rapid and radical packaging
rethink that goes right through the retail sector.
No retailers are off the hook. But more than a third of the
plastic in our lives comes from our supermarkets, so this is where most of us
expect to see change. The brutal truth is that if the supermarkets are not
ready to lead the charge to reduce the spill of plastics into the world, it’s
hard to imagine large-scale change happening at all. So, Tesco, Sainsbury’s,
Lidl, Aldi and the rest of you, what’s your plan? Your customers, everywhere,
are waiting.
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall co-presents War on Plastic on
BBC1 on Monday at 9pm
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