Plastic-free Packaging (Fruit and Vegetables)

Debate between Mark Pawsey and Sandy Martin

Monday 12th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on leading an excellent debate and bringing it to the Chamber today. As he says, pollution from plastics is one of the biggest global pollution issues of our time. Although Britain is not alone in producing and using plastics, I believe that this country can and should be a beacon of good practice. What we in the developed world do will have real influence on what happens in the rest of the world.

The hon. Gentleman took an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) on having proper checks on our plastics exports, and I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s commitment in respect of alternatives for packaging and reductions in the amount of packaging. In particular, I welcome his support for the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made on education and simplifying packaging, so that we can maximise recycling.

I also welcome the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). We are all well aware of the news that has come out about plastic contamination of tap water. Alongside our worries about the natural world, public health worries are at the forefront of public concern about plastic pollution. It is leading to a real public move towards doing something about the scourge. I reiterate what my hon. Friend said about Camden Council’s recycling rewards scheme. Will the Government investigate using national financial incentives to roll out best practice across local authorities? Whatever we do about recycling and waste minimisation, it has to be done with central Government working in conjunction with local authorities. Whatever we do must be founded on knowledge and a scientific appreciation of what happens to different types of plastic. We need the Government to take a lead on that.

The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) mentioned cucumbers. I must admit that at first I assumed that he was saying that cucumbers do not need to be wrapped at all. I have a greengrocer just across the road from me in my constituency; none of its cucumbers are wrapped, and I have never seen a rotten cucumber there. The hon. Gentleman may well be right that cucumbers last a bit longer when they are wrapped up, but plenty of fruit and vegetables do not last longer wrapped. I have always thought that bananas come in the perfect natural wrapping and really do not need additional wrapping, and I suspect that in many other cases wrapping contributes nothing to the fruit or vegetable’s keeping.

[Mark Pawsey]

In fact, cucumbers are probably an example of the most effective use of polythene wrap. It is a tiny amount of packaging, but it can prolong the life of a cucumber by up to 10 days. The hon. Gentleman says that he has not seen cucumbers in plastic wrapping, but he will almost certainly have seen significant amounts of food waste where fruit and vegetables that are not appropriately wrapped are allowed to rot.

[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.

[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.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman has already talked about the large number of people who are concerned about the plastic used in supermarkets, but supermarkets do what their customers want. Why does he think supermarkets have used plastic packaging as they have?

[Sandy Martin]

I do not agree that supermarkets do what customers want. They do whatever will induce the customer to purchase the majority of their food at the supermarket. Plastic is not necessarily what people want if they are given a choice, but very often, as has been said, customers in a supermarket do not have a choice, so we cannot say that the supermarket is doing what the customer wants. Clearly, if customers do not have a choice, they take what the supermarket offers them. For instance, when I go into a supermarket to buy some of my fruit and vegetables, I normally do not have a choice as to what bag to put them into. I do not put loose tomatoes into a supermarket shopping trolley; if I had a paper bag to put them in, I would put them into that, but if there is only a plastic bag, perforce I have to put them into that.

[Mark Pawsey]

Would the paper bag provide the protection for the tomatoes that the plastic tray with the cellophane wrap provides?

[Sandy Martin]

I do not believe that tomatoes need that level of protection. If one treats them carefully, as I always do when I am in a supermarket, I put them into a bag, and there is no way that a paper bag would provide less protection than a plastic bag. However, the paper bag is compostable and the plastic bag is not.

We need the forthcoming environment Bill, promised by the Prime Minister in July this year, to contain clear actions for dealing with plastics based on comprehensive knowledge of current problems and science-based understanding of the impacts. We are waiting to hear what the Government propose to do to ensure that the environment Bill contains effective measures to combat plastics pollution.

Too often we have seen half-hearted and piecemeal gimmicks from the Government. What is needed is wholesale, systemic change. In the meantime, I urge the Minister to take the petition seriously and to consider whether a mandatory requirement for fresh fruit and vegetables to be made available without plastic packaging would be desirable and possible.