Unsustainable Packaging

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, my hon. Friend introduces the gravity that I would expect of him, and he makes serious points. I am sure others will refer to the need to reduce, reuse and recycle in the correct sequence. The measurement issue is important. I am trying to adopt a non-partisan tone in today’s debate, because I suspect we are all trying to get to the same place, but he makes a very fair point about the need to ensure that the statistics on which we make decisions are reliable, and an even more important point that we cannot just export our waste and pretend that that is not having an impact somewhere else.

My final resting-point on my tour of great Cambridge places is Cambridge’s Daily Bread Co-operative, which is launching its zero-waste scheme this week. My point is that wherever we turn, we find people wanting to bring forward new and welcome initiatives. That brings me to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee; I am standing opposite its Chair, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and I am grateful to him for being in the Chamber this afternoon. The Committee is in the midst of an inquiry on food and drink packaging, which has allowed me the delight of reading through both its proceedings and its evidence.

I suspect the hon. Gentleman will want to comment on some of that, but the experts consulted by the Committee tell us that while changes can be made, we must temper our enthusiasm with realism, because there is probably no easy answer or quick fix to the problem. Packaging plays an important role in keeping food fresh, safe and affordable, so although moving away from pre-packaged foods in shops, restaurants and cafes is probably possible, the question becomes more difficult and complicated when we consider freight and production.

Despite that, it definitely seems possible to me significantly to reduce the amount that we use here in the UK, but it would be simplistic to assume that we could just transfer that way of producing and transporting food all over the world, when in some places the same level of technology is not yet readily available.

It is important to remember where the most environmental damage is done. In evidence to the EFRA Committee inquiry, Peter Maddox, from WRAP UK, explained that

“when you look at a piece of meat, a nice eight ounce beefsteak in a package with a film on top…the carbon impact of the steak is over 100 times bigger than the carbon impact of the packaging. That packaging is providing extremely innovative barrier properties, which enables that meat to last a lot longer. If you did not have it in that pack, that meat might last three days. If you have it in a really good sealable pack, it will last 10 days. You start then thinking about what consumers want, reducing food waste and the fundamental economic value of that piece of meat. You need to think about it in terms of the whole product.”

Having read through the evidence, that message comes through loud and clear. The whole product and the whole life-cycle analysis are key. We must recognise that as we continue our efforts to reduce non-recyclable packaging. There is so much we can do, but it is realistic to admit that we cannot eradicate its use completely overnight.

However, we must not lose our ambition. The Royal Society of Chemistry, based in Cambridge, highlighted in evidence to the inquiry that, although bio-derived and biodegradable plastics will play a role in addressing the challenges caused by conventional plastic waste, they should not be used to legitimise a throwaway culture; they are not necessarily more environmentally benign than conventional plastics; and their impact as a replacement for conventional plastics must be considered on a life-cycle basis. This suggests that despite technological advancement, cultural awareness and change are still crucial. The UK cannot absolve itself of responsibility for mass corporate and personal behaviour change just because technology is advancing.

At the roundtable in Cambridge last week, Seigo Robinson and others were concerned that reducing non-recyclable plastic packaging was not necessarily compatible with the drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For example, it was said that “carting around loads of refillable jam jars” would use “loads of CO₂”; we may not have been precise or measurable on this occasion, but hon. Members will get the point. Alternatives to plastic packaging, such as paper, steel, wood and glass, could sadly have far worse carbon footprints. People said that plastic pollution of the oceans and carbon emissions needed to go hand in hand, and argued that recycling ought to be a last resort; people should look at using reusable containers for many years before thinking about the need for recycling.

Continuing my spirit of generosity towards the Government—I have no idea why I am in this generous mood, but I am—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

He is a generous Minister.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Perhaps, and perhaps I have some sympathy with the Government’s current travails. However, it is fair to say that we have seen progress. The Government have looked at banning plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic cotton buds, but I fear that they have so far been rather reluctant to introduce the fiscal measures that we now know do work. The plastic bag charge was discussed over many years, and it has now taken 15 billion plastic bags out of circulation. Imagine what proper fiscal incentives and taxes could do to change the way our society considers waste and how committed we all are to recycling.

The drink stirrer announcement grabbed headlines, but we need to seize this moment to make the “rapid”, “unprecedented” and “far-reaching” transitions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report called for in October. In evidence to the EFRA Committee’s inquiry, the Green Alliance recommended moving away from piecemeal action and approaching plastic, packaging and resource use in general in a much more systemic way. This means viewing plastic as just one resource among many used in our economy, all of which have environmental impacts of some sort.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this timely debate and for his favourable quoting of me as Chair of the Select Committee. We are very much on the same page: I think we have to reduce plastics, and we have to get more compostable plastics, but we also have to be quite sensible in how we go about that. Let us use some carrots as well as sticks to try to persuade people to change their attitudes. I very much welcome the debate, which comes on the back of the petition on stopping the use of non-recyclable, unsustainable food packaging.

I would be told off by my Committee Clerks, if they were here, if I went into too much detail of what I thought the Committee might or might not decide after taking our evidence. However, naturally, I will go through the evidence that we have taken so far. We have really seen that we can actually reduce a great deal of the plastics we use. Whether they are recyclable or not, do we actually need the amount of plastic that we have? Some people here are younger than others, but most of us have grown up gradually using more and more plastic. I still remember glass bottles and things like that, which were recyclable and came with a deposit on them—Corona bottles and the like. I used to go around collecting them as a boy, especially if they washed up in the river, because I could then get the deposit back. All these things are useful, because people not only returned them but they collected them as well.

I was at an event last week where Water UK suggested having more fountains, and making sure that we carried a reusable water bottle around with us. Millions and billions of plastic bottles are used for mineral water. We probably have some of the best tap water in the world. Do we need all this bottled water? It has become a real fashion. I know it is very difficult to tell people that they are out of fashion, but they may well be now, if there are so many unnecessary plastic bottles.

[Graham Stringer]

Some time ago, I had lunch with Eddie Stobart—I may have got this figure slightly wrong, because it was a long time ago that we had lunch—but I think he said that at any one time on the motorways he had 40 lorries carrying nothing but water. It is an extraordinary waste of energy making the bottles and, as the hon. Gentleman says, we have high-quality water in virtually every corner of this country. I have tried at different times to persuade the House authorities to use tap water, not bottled water. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we could make a small contribution by not having bottled water at our Committee meetings?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The House could of course lead by having bottled tap water instead of mineral water. As a farmer and previously a dairy farmer, I can say that dairy farmers often joke that they would be better off if, instead of milking cows, they could find a spring on their farm and bottle the water, because more money can be made from bottling water than from keeping cows and producing milk. It is fair enough if people really want mineral water; perhaps some people need mineral water for health or other reasons, but we certainly do not need the amount that we consume and we do not need to have it in plastic bottles.

Of course, if we are going to have plastic bottles, let us ensure that they are properly recyclable. Some of the big companies—Pepsi and Coca-Cola—are looking at reverse vending machines. That is where someone takes a plastic bottle, puts it back through the vending machine, gets a deposit and another bottle can be made from that plastic. Of course, only 70% of that plastic can be used and it can only be recycled about twice. With everything in this world that we look at, we find, when we drill down, that it is not quite as recyclable and reusable as we believed it to be.

[Mrs Main]

On the recycling of bottles, I took the APPG to the Veolia recycling plant in Dagenham. A problem that we have is that a lot of plastic cannot be used more than once. That plant had empty machines because it needs to feed those machines. It is a dilemma: the more we take plastic out of the system, the more recycling becomes too expensive to do. That is something we have to think about.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We can recycle plastics, but if we recycle a mix of different plastics, we find that we get a very low-grade reusable plastic. If compostable plastics are mixed with the non-compostable, we have another problem. Everything in life is not simple; as with every inquiry that one does, the more one looks into the issue, the more complicated it becomes. I am a practical farmer, and the one thing that I want to see is that we really do good by reducing the amount of plastic, having properly compostable plastics and doing something that actually works. We have to be careful. Governments of all colours will naturally say, “Let’s tick this box. We’ve recycled this; we’ve done this; we’ve done that.” But does it actually work? Does it improve the environment? That is the issue.

Moving on to compostable plastics, we have to be certain that they will decompose properly so that the molecules break down and we can grow plants in our garden or put the material on to our fields and grow our crops and it does not leave tiny little particles of plastic that has not broken down. Most of it will compost, but it has to be composted in a certain way. If I put the beaker that I have with me in the Chamber in my garden with a whole load of other beakers and leave them together, that will never decompose, or it will take a very long time to do so. If we mix it with garden waste and other organic materials and can get the temperature up to 60°, it will break down, probably within 12 weeks to six months, so that can be done. It will break right down, but as I said, it has to be done properly. We do not want the plastic in these beakers mixing with other plastic that is not compostable. That is why the collection of plastics and the recycling of them are vital. We have local government all over the country—I was in local government before I came to this place—and local authorities are fiercely independent, but of course we have lots of different ways of collecting and recycling and so on.

The Government will probably have to be braver on this issue and give stricter advice to local authorities on how they recycle and on having a similar system across the country. For example, I do not have the patience that my wife has to sort things into every tiny little thing. I think that we need to make recycling a little bit more idiot-proof for people like me, dare I say. Do not smile like that, Minister. I was going to say something nice about you in a minute, but I may not now.

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. As a farmer, the hon. Gentleman should know that when you are in a hole, it is best to stop digging.

[Neil Parish]

Yes, I will carry on with my speech, Sir George; I apologise. On compostable plastic, we need to ensure much better public awareness. We also have to ensure that we collect the material separately and do not mix it with plastic that is not compostable.

I think that if we were to bring in a tax at the source, where plastics are made, that would raise the cost, but those plastics that were genuinely compostable could be made exempt or there could be a reduction in the amount of tax put on that particular plastic. That would ensure that the compostable plastics were more competitive in the marketplace.

The hon. Member for Cambridge rightly went into quite a lot of detail about what we actually need to wrap in plastic. When it comes to meat, fish and things that we want to keep for a long time, we can improve the shelf life by using plastic. We do not want to waste food; that is the last thing we want. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so we need to be a little careful. As I have said, we must ensure that we do not waste food. When it comes to those vacuum packs, let us ensure that it is those foods that require a longer life that we concentrate the plastics on.

Other hon. Members have made this point: do we really need potatoes, carrots, onions and all those things wrapped in plastic? Do individual bits of broccoli need to be wrapped in plastic? When we go to the supermarket, the food is almost pre-digested and pre-eaten, before we actually eat it, because it has been prepared so thoroughly. We wash our potatoes, carrots and all those things and then put them in plastic bags. That is all very convenient, but I was told as a boy, “You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.” I think people would have a job to eat a peck of dirt today, because everything is washed so clean. Carrots, potatoes and all those root crops grow in the ground, believe it or not. They get soil on them, and a little bit of soil—well, I will not diverge from the subject too far, but there is iron in soil. All these things are part of life.

Without getting too romantic and reminiscing too much, we could look a lot more at how we used to eat our food. Not everything will work, and as I have said, we will still need some plastics, so let us make them compostable. Take cheese, for example. Does all of that need to be wrapped in plastic, so that it seems to be made of rubber, and delivered to us? We could have some really good flavoured cheese that is done in a more traditional way; perhaps we could take it home in some greaseproof paper or whatever. Do we need all the plastic and cardboard packaging that is used to package strawberries? For all these things, do we need it?

Another issue that we have not looked at is the glossy leaflets that we receive through the post. They are all plastic-coated. I do not think that the Select Committee will look at this in our inquiry, but when we start looking at something, we suddenly start looking at everything that arrives with different eyes. One of the agricultural merchants sent me a whole thing to do with cattle drenches and goodness knows what, and it was all in a very glossy leaflet, all plastic-coated. That is not necessary. In fact, if we use something that looks more old-fashioned, with old-fashioned print, and put it on some proper paper, instead of a plastic-coated leaflet, it might work a lot better than carrying on with more and more plastic.

[Mrs Main]

We have all become used to seeing huge bales of hay in fields covered in plastic shrink wrap. Does my hon. Friend have a view on that?

[Neil Parish]

If my hon. Friend could guarantee the weather, so that we did not have to wrap the silage because of the rain and could make it all into hay, we could do away with a lot of plastic. She is right that we could use less plastic.

My issue—I will get into trouble with some farmers now—is the amount of plastics in the fields used for growing crops. We are all chasing the early market. We put down more and more plastic, but I wonder whether that is right. The plastic used to wrap those silage bales needs to be properly recycled. I suspect that we could look at the type of materials used, to ensure that they are properly compostable. Of course, one has to be careful to ensure that the acids released in the fermentation of the silage do not dissolve the wrapper. I think that more can be done. Farmers will have to look at that quite seriously. I am sure that the Minister probably does not want to talk about that today, but the farming industry will have to look at that seriously.

I will not carry on talking all day—although I probably could. The hon. Member for Cambridge has brought a very important issue to the Chamber. The real way forward is for the Government, industry and consumers to look at everything we do—the way we live—and ask whether we can carry on with this lifestyle. Do we need as much plastic? Can the plastic we use be properly compostable? If it is not compostable, can we ensure that it is properly recycled? Can we ensure that we collect that plastic in a way that retains the value of the plastic for recycling, rather than turning it into a low-grade plastic?

We can do a lot more. The Government need to consider taxation. I am not a great lover of taxation, but we could tax the overuse of raw mineral plastic made from oil and move people on to compostable plastics. Let us ensure in the future that we use half as much plastic as we do now, and not less than that, that most of it will be compostable and that we genuinely recycle the rest. That way we can use it for good purposes, such as making plastic fencing stakes, which would last forever, rather than rot out. That would be a good use of plastic.

There are many ideas out there. I look forward to the Minister’s response, as well as that of the shadow Minister, who is a good member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The Minister is making, and will make, an excellent Agriculture Minister.