“We should become champions of resource efficiency and
choose responsibly sourced materials with the lowest carbon footprint
Hope on the horizon A better future lies ahead says James Lee, Managing Director of Cromwell Polythene.
Every organisation starts each new year with fresh plans and resolutions. I think it’s fair to say that we’re all hoping that 2021 will be happier, healthier, and more prosperous than last year. Whilst the pandemic is far from over, vaccines are being rolled out, which has given us optimism for the future.
A brighter horizon also relies on us taking action now to avoid lurching from the coronavirus crisis into a deeper climate emergency. Once we come out of the acute phase of this pandemic, it will be interesting to see if governments take more legislative measures to encourage organisations to do more to reduce their environmental impact.
In order to protect precious resources, sustainability must remain high on the agenda for 2021. To drive this forward, the UK government has outlined legislative changes to address the environmental and climate crises, under its Environment Bill which was outlined last year. This aims to deliver the vision set out in its 25 Year Environment Plan.
The bill includes plans for a consistent set of recyclable materials to be collected from households and businesses. These include weekly food waste collections and simplification of the recycling process.
Recycling and re-use of materials starts with effective segregation of the different waste streams, such as paper, glass, plastic, and food waste, to avoid contamination. Unfortunately, items can often end up in the incorrect bin. The value of paper, for example, is significantly reduced if it is contaminated with wet wastes such as food, and may even render it unrecyclable.
The government also plans to introduce an extended producer responsibility system for packaging in 2023. Producers will be given significant responsibility – financial and/or physical – for the disposal or treatment of their products once they are no longer in use by the consumer.
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In addition, there will be a Plastic Packaging Tax from April 2022, which will apply to plastic packaging manufactured in, or imported into, the United Kingdom that contains less than 30% recycled plastics.
Cleaning organisations will have to start preparing now for the logistical and administrative requirements to manage these changes. Advice and key sustainability documentation can be found in the resources section of our website.
All businesses in the supply chain should now be working together to find solutions to protect our environment, combat climate change, and support circular economy principles, where we re-use, re-manufacture, repair, and recycle as much as possible.
At the same time, it’s important to recognise that there are many benefits to using plastic packaging, such as preventing food waste and, due to its lightweight characteristics, reduced fuel consumption and lower greenhouse gases.
Plastic is used for medical equipment and to safely protect specialist items, which is extremely important for infection control at present. Within the cleaning industry, it enables the safe containment of liquids, eliminating environmental leaching of cleaning chemicals and wastes from bottles, for instance. The industry’s use of plastic waste sacks and bags is the simplest and most cost-effective way to encourage the safe and hygienic separation and collection of materials for re-use and recycling.
To combat climate change, we need to act now. However, we must avoid knee-jerk reactions that lead to resources being burned through faster. We should, instead, become champions of resource efficiency and choose responsibly sourced materials with the lowest carbon footprint.
www.cromwellpolythene.co.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environment-bill-2020 (
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/25-year-environment-plan) (
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introduction-of-plastic-packaging-tax/plastic-packaging-tax)
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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