Packaging professionals at yesterday's NSW AIP meeting were urged to get on the front foot with plastic and spread the message about its positive benefits, as the industry comes under sustained attack.
Some 100 people were at the packed lunchtime event, which heard speaker after speaker spruik the uses of plastic, both virgin and recycled, and highlight the steps being taken by the industry to stop its adverse environmental impact.
A feisty question time saw the panel deal with whose responsibility it was to communicate to the public, wrestle with why one tray is marked as recyclable while another ostensibly identical one is not, and question whether laminate coated fibre packaging, such as Tetra Pak, should be marked as recyclable when only part of it is. The question time reflected the tumultuous impact the new-found public awareness of plastic packaging is having on the industry.
Opening proceedings Keith Chessell said, “There needs to be education as to what is happening with plastic. The industry is under siege, plastic packaging in particular. Australia has been sending eight million tonnes of plastic bags a year into the ocean. That is now being stopped. We need to ask ourselves as an industry, is there a future for soft plastic. The answer is yes, but recycling is clearly key.”
Caitlyn Richards, responsible sourcing manager, sustainable products and packaging at Coles talked about the supermarket's own efforts, which include having all its own brand packaging 100 per cent recycled by the end of next year. She also said, “The lightning rod issues, like plastic wrapping of individual cucumbers, are far more complex than the public imagines. Plastic wrapping extends the shelf life significantly, which reduces waste, whose environmental impact is actually greater than the plastic, especially if that plastic is recycled.”
The Redcycle programme – which sees the public actively involved in plastic recycling – was hailed as major success, with all 812 Coles stores around the country running it.
Anthony Peyton gave an insight into the PREP programme, and challenged brand owners to be the first to embrace the Roll 'n' Recycle of stand up pouches, which enables consumers to prepare them for recycling in a way that means they go into the plastic and not the paper sorters.
Replas sales and marketing director Mark Jacobson gave an impassioned presentation, highlighting the ability of his company to take post-consumer plastic and produce sellable products like bench seats, promenades and car park wheel stops. He said, “It is the brands that have to drive it though. And they are coming on board, we have bench seats for sale at Coles that have been made from the plastic waste the Coles customers have brought back through the Redcycle programme. That is the circular economy, where the waste has a value.”
Replas has 55 brand owners on board, up from 40 last year, which is up from 30 the year before. Jacobson said, “As brands become more accountable we should see an increasing number looking to take responsibility for the plastic they produce. The Replas solution meets the challenge.
“Plastic packaging is growing exponentially. It is not going anywhere, the opposite in fact. We all have to take responsibility. For instance in your own workplace, what are the car pack wheel stops made of? Concrete, or your own recycled plastic?”
Final speaker of the day Peter Tamblyn, sales and marketing manager from Close the Loop said the zero waste to landfill slogan was a big ask, but it is breeding great innovation. Close the Loop has so far recycled 41 million printer cartridges, with the vast majority of them being converted into pellets for road building, through a partnership with Downer. Close the Loop uses multiple recycled products in its pellets, which like toner are polymer based.
Tanblyn said, “We have reached tipping point with the roads. Our recycled product is in roads in every state in the country, except NT. And the quality of the roads is better in terms of both the fatigue and the consistency, 65 per cent better in fact when it comes to fatigue.”
The event ran well over time, as the industry wrestled with ways to respond to consumer concern over plastic, and the issue of perception versus reality. Audience members bemoaned the public on the one hand lambasting plastic, while on the other driving its use through their lifestyle choices.
