Plastic-free Packaging (Fruit and Vegetables)

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

That is indeed a huge challenge, which needs to be addressed from all angles. As the hon. Gentleman said, there are great challenges, particularly for developed countries, to reduce the amount of plastic that is produced and in circulation. We also need to ensure that we dispose responsibly of any plastic that is produced and ensure that it is not contributing to the environmental pollution that we have seen for far too long. That challenge has to be addressed from a number of different angles; I do not think there will ever be one simple solution.

The amount of plastic entering our seas is now a matter of huge concern for many people. As is well documented, it is estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans. That is of concern not only because of the damage it is doing to the marine environment, but because that pollution is being ingested by humans as we eat the fish from the sea. We should really take the issue seriously and seek to address it.

It is right to acknowledge the steps the Government have already taken in reducing the amount of plastic pollution. It is well documented that the 5p plastic bag charge, introduced by the previous Conservative-led Government, has dramatically reduced the amount of plastic bags in use: by 83%. About 9 billion fewer plastic bags have been used since the introduction of that simple 5p charge. The Government have brought forward a comprehensive 25-year plan for the environment, including measures to look at reducing plastic waste and disposing of waste more responsibly. That should be welcomed. I want to join the many environmental groups that are calling for an introduction of plastic-free aisles and products in our supermarkets.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that we are spending enough money on research to develop the products that will still have plastic’s advantage of retaining water, but which are not plastic and are biodegradable?

[Steve Double]

I guess the only answer to that question is no. We could always spend more on research, to reduce the amount of damage we are doing to our environment. I know there are a number of innovations coming forward in other forms of packaging that can provide the benefits of plastic without the damage to the environment. We should do all we can—I encourage the Government to consider anything they can do—to support and invest in those measures, to ensure that we are seeking not just to cut back on plastic, but to come forward with other answers to packaging that provide the benefits of plastic, but do not damage our environment.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) set out clearly the environmental aspects of the issue. I will not repeat what they said, but I acknowledge the truth of what they said and the enormous impact that plastic has on our environment.

We had a bit of a tour of people’s favourite fruit and vegetables—my hon. Friend mentioned the cauliflower and the hon. Lady mentioned the avocado. Let me add the cucumber to the list. My biggest bugbear with the cucumber is the plastic it is wrapped in. I do not know where my hon. Friend got his figure that most plastic lasts only minutes. It takes me minutes to get the plastic off the cucumber, let alone to dispose of it. I often end up having to extract bits of plastic from the salad I make with the cucumber because I was not able to get it all off.

The difficulty is that plastic plays an important part in the life of the cucumber. Without plastic the cucumber would probably last for a maximum of three days—that is the time it would take the water in it to evaporate—whereas with plastic it can last up to 14 days. I repeat what I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend: we need much more research and innovation to replace the sorts of plastics we currently use with new forms of covering that keep some of the characteristics of those plastics.

That leads to a number of other questions, including about the quantity of food we buy and the fact that there is little seasonality in the market. We can go out and buy anything the whole year round.

[Mr Sheerman]

I know that the hon. Gentleman knows a great deal about this subject. I beg everyone involved in this area to think holistically. We all know that we can get any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, but it will probably have been flown 500 or 3,000 miles to get to our kitchen. I feel sympathy for him. I would hesitate to accept an invitation to eat a salad at his house. If he popped into a local farmers’ market, he might find something a lot fresher with no plastic.

[John Howell]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I was going to invite him to dinner, but since that would be refused—

[Mr Sheerman]

As long as it’s not salad, I’ll come.

[John Howell]

That is fine.

The hon. Gentleman is right that by popping into a farmers’ market one can get a cucumber raw, as it were. Like anyone else, I like to eat the things I like the whole year round, but I take the point that the economics of delivering them may mean they have been flown 3,000 or 5,000 miles. I question whether those economics are sound and sustainable in the long term. If that means I have to cut down on certain foods, I shall probably be none the poorer in health terms.

Turning for a moment from the cucumber to other fruit and veg, I notice that there has already been quite a development in fruit packaging, even in supermarkets. I think innovations have already been made in packaging for fruit, a lot of which is recyclable. Berries are a good example of that.

[Jim Shannon]

Most of us in the Chamber—there are a few exceptions—are probably of a vintage that means we can remember when everything was put in paper bags. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is right—there is a fruit and veg store on every high street and a farmers’ market in every town, so there are still lots of opportunities in that respect. Does the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) agree that we should look at what more we can do with recycled newspapers, for instance? The resulting paper product may well be the answer. We can look at changing how people shop, but there may also be ways of changing packaging.

[John Howell]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The way we look at this issue is important. My district council always does very well on recycling, but it needs to look at non-recyclable elements such as plastic, which represent its biggest cost.

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a very interesting area. Does he know that the evaluation we have done in the all-party parliamentary sustainable resource group looks at the quality of local authorities’ management of waste management? I beg him to consider what has happened in Oxford. The whole place has been transformed by good management and the city now makes money out of recycling rather than its being a cost to the local ratepayer.

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[John Howell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. It is no problem at all for me to look at Oxford City; it is the next district council to mine. Both councils have very good recycling. I shall certainly look at that and see how it gets on.

I recently returned from a visit to Israel, and there were enormous markets everywhere with enormous quantities of fresh food and vegetables. People took along bags, ordered what they wanted—if they knew the seller very well, even feeling the product first—and simply put it in their bags. There was no packaging whatsoever. I do not yet claim to be so old as to remember some things, but I remember when that was the normal way of purchasing fruit and vegetables in my area. There is something about that that we should go back to.

When we go to markets overseas, there is an instant smell—almost as soon as we get off the plane—that is characteristic of that country and which comes, to a large extent, from the raw fruit and vegetables and the herbs and spices that are produced there. They are not wrapped up and placed where they cannot be smelt. Smell is an important part of the debate, because if we cannot smell a product, how do we know whether it is fresh or ripe? The colour is perhaps an indication, but I have always gone by smell and touch. Those two things are two very important things, and it is insane, therefore, that we use so much packaging, for the environmental reasons but also because of our experience of and relationship with food.

A number of options are available, one of which is to buy smaller portions. We do not need to buy eight tomatoes if we are perhaps going to use only four. I also like the idea of the boxes of vegetables that are produced. I know that they are relatively expensive, but the vegetables come unwrapped. They are all the better for that, and you can get a good feel for them.

I know that plastic has a role in keeping food fresh and keeping dirty hands off it, but it would still be nice occasionally to see vegetables with the soil attached, before taking them home to wash and cook them. Plastic keeps sweat away from the vegetables and prevents contamination, but there must be other ways of doing that, using technology to overcome the problem.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very important point. Housewives want to see nice, clean products, with no soil or other materials in the bag. I cast my mind back to when we were all young at home and my mum would get 10 half-hundredweight bags of potatoes—there was a big family of us. They came in October and sat in the coldness of the shed until the following March—the whole winter—when they were finished. How is it that that could happen in those days, but today we cannot even keep a potato for a week?

[John Howell]

The hon. Gentleman asks a very valid question. Research done in schools showed that no one quite knew where vegetables came from. No one had ever seen vegetables with soil on, so no one knew that they came from the ground. Everyone thought that vegetables always came from the shop, and no one had a clue about where they came from before that. That is terrible, in terms of our relationship with food. I like to think of myself as a great foodie, and I like to have a relationship with food. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) smiles and nods at me. He is very welcome to come and dine with me; I promise there will be no salad.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay made the point that consumer must take the lead. After the initial flurry of interest that got consumers thinking, there is great fear that consumer interest may have peaked. We must ensure that that peak remains high and that interest in what is right continues. I am sure that many things can be done. Education and the role of children are vital in maintaining that interest, but we can all do a lot to set a good example. I was pleased to see the royal family taking a lead in banning single-use plastic from the palaces.

That is probably as much as I wanted to say in this excellent debate. I will certainly do all I can to encourage people not to use plastic, and I hope that my problems with the cucumber will be well and truly solved in the near future.

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[Sandy Martin]

I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. I said that I had not seen cucumbers wrapped in plastic at my local greengrocer; obviously in supermarkets they are. My suspicion is that that is because the cucumbers in my local greengrocer never stay there for more than a day, as he only gets in as many as he is going to sell.

[John Howell]

If the hon. Gentleman has ever seen bananas growing in plantations, he will have seen that the fruit is wrapped in blue plastic bags to keep animals and insects away from it. Its natural state is not always enough.

[Sandy Martin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I have actually seen bananas growing in their natural habitat; not only that, but I helped plant them out, maintained irrigation systems and chopped the plants down at the end of the year when they were finished and the new sprouting plant needed to grow up. I have eaten bananas fresh off the plant, as well. That was in the 1970s, and I have to say that the bananas were not wrapped up in blue plastic and did not seem to suffer much as a result. I very much agree, however, that we need more research into what does and does not work and how we can ensure that best practice is used to reduce waste, not only of plastic but of the thing being wrapped.

The world faces a pollution crisis from plastics. Some 400 million tonnes of plastic will be produced this year; as we have heard, it is estimated that 12 million tonnes of that will end up in the ocean, and the problem continues to grow. Pollution is not the only problem; the use of plastics contributes to climate change, as most plastics are made from fossil fuels. Approximately 6% of global oil production is used for making plastics, and that figure will grow. The Chinese plan to increase their use of coal as the main feedstock for plastics, and the US has extensive plans to increase the use of shale gas extracted by fracking for making plastics. According to DEFRA’s modelling, in 2017 the UK’s 42 incinerators released a combined total of nearly 5 million tonnes of CO₂ from the incineration of fossil-based materials, predominantly plastics. Even if the incinerator generates electricity, burning plastic in an incinerator produces around 2.5 times less useful energy output for that CO₂ than would have been obtained from the direct use of the original fossil fuel as fuel.

Public awareness of the issue is strong. I urge the Minister to consider that the time for action is now. The Government could make a regulation now that met the demands of the petition, which has about 125,000 signatures. A further petition organised by Friends of the Earth calling for Government action on plastics pollution now has 187,000 signatures. Any action must deal with the actual problems. If we are to have effective action, we need to understand what the problems are.

In response to the petition, the Government say:

“Packaging has an important and positive role to play in reducing product damage, increasing shelf-life, and reducing food waste.”

However, plastic packaging on fresh fruit and vegetables may contribute to food waste: by offering a fixed packaged quantity, people may be induced to buy more than they need, as the hon. Member for Henley mentioned. Also, the amount of waste may be disguised. Rather than damaged food being thrown away by the supermarket, the customer may well find damaged fruit or vegetables inside the plastic packaging and then throw them away in the household. Also, I question whether most fresh fruit and vegetables are given an enhanced shelf life by being wrapped in plastic.

Even when fruit and vegetables are offered loose to the general public, often the only way of taking them to the checkout is in plastic bags because no paper bags are provided. I support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who is no longer in her place. Providing paper bags for people to choose to use if they want to avoid using plastic is something that every supermarket could do. I am glad to hear that Morrisons is doing just that.

The Government have promised,

“a four point plan taking action at each stage of the product lifecycle—production, consumption and end of life.”

However, recycling is only a part of any solution to the problem of plastic. Eunomia, working for Friends of the Earth, estimated that only 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled. The Guardian has published estimates that about 800,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste each year emanates from supermarkets, so our No. 1 priority must be to reduce the amount of plastic used in the first place. The best way to start is to identify applications that are unnecessary, and I suggest that wrapping fresh fruit and vegetables in plastic is one such application.

Local Government Association analysis published on 4 August 2018 suggests that only a third of plastic used by households is capable of being recycled. Most waste collection and sorting systems are unable to deal with film and bags, which are the main plastic items associated with the sale of fresh fruit and vegetables, so the expectation is that almost none of the plastics that the petition addresses are recyclable. The answer, surely, is to prevent them from being used in the first place.

What do the Government intend to do? Labour will support actions that reduce harmful pollution from plastics, but I am not clear that the Government know what those actions might be. Will a tax on packaging with less than 30% recycled material actually reduce the amount of plastic getting into the environment? I am not sure. We have still to see the details. Whatever the Government do, they need to act before 2022, when the proposed “30% or less” tax would be implemented, if they are to meet their stated aim to recycle 70% by 2025 and eliminate plastic by 2042.

The Government also talk about encouraging voluntary selective plastic-free aisles in a small number of supermarkets. Of course that would be a good step forward, but it is not enough. When The Guardian surveyed the major supermarkets, none was willing to commit to setting up plastic-free aisles, despite the Prime Minister’s optimism last week, and only two supermarkets—Aldi and the Co-op—were open about the amount of plastic packaging that they put on to the market.