packaging, and what aspects of packaging to look out for in terms of sustainability; and encouraging other actors in the plastic packaging value chain – food producers, packaging producers, recyclers, etc. – to engage with each other to reconcile tensions and incompatibilities. Attitude: Recycling is positive and should be increased to prevent waste. Behaviour: In their enthusiasm to prevent waste, consumers recycle materials that are not on the local authority list of accepted materials, thereby adding materials into inappropriate collection streams. Gap: This behaviour makes recycling outputs more difficult to achieve, and ironically is more likely to generate waste, because it requires more sorting and separating of mixed recycling to reorganise the volume into separate material streams that can be passed on to the numerous individual sites that can reprocess and convert a particular material into something new. If a recycling container is too contaminated, it may not be worth the time to re-sort and will simply be diverted into residual waste. This second consumer attitudebehaviour gap is largely driven by messages about the environmental problems of waste, which shape consumer attitudes towards the benefits of recycling. A key opportunity lies in finding ways to help consumers understand the importance of different streams for waste and the concept of ‘contamination’. The idea of ‘recyclability’ is a latent one that needs to be operationalised through a particular material being put in a container that goes into a particular recycling stream to a particular reprocessing site that has the equipment, technology and market connections to make something new from that plastic resource. This is particularly important as materials are increasingly valued for their end use potential as feedstock to replace virgin fossil fuel plastic. Another opportunity lies in helping consumers understand the reasons why recycling collections and practices change as new technological breakthroughs and market demands affect the desirability of particular types of plastic or other material. Moreover, reducing the amount of material that needs handling, notably by reducing our waste overall and moving to reuse systems rather than single-use packaging, would help to relieve pressure on the system, free up time, space and labour resources for more effective recycling. The third of our findings is a reverse of the other two, where attitudes arise from a behaviour. Behaviour: Consumers recycle (as they consider it is positive). Attitude: Nevertheless, consumers do not fully trust that companies are doing the right thing with the materials. Gap: Consumers request simple reassurance that ‘something positive’ is being done with the material rather than caring about the details of what it is actually, or what it could be, used for. This gap arises from consumers’ mistrust of companies doing the right thing with their packaging materials. This mistrust has emerged due to news stories exposing past failures in the waste management and recycling industry. The mistrust hangs in tension with consumer hopes that something better will be done with their materials than would happen if it were added to a residual waste collection. However, the challenge of ‘upcycling’ plastic packaging is huge from a practical, economic and technological perspective. A key opportunity may lie in being more open across the value chain, revealing and educating about the hard work and the costs involved in reusing plastic packaging in new products, and the complexities of achieving ‘food grade’ recycled packaging; demonstrating the complexity and fragility of recycling systems and value chains as a whole; and showing the current benefits, particularly connected to convenience, that are accruing to consumers. AN IDEAL FUTURE? Despite ongoing concerns and uncertainties about national capacities and future material flows and changes, more recycling and fewer exports continue to be achieved in the UK, albeit with different polymer materials still being at different levels of reprocessing (PET and HDPE are already circular, for example, being reincorporated into food packaging, while soft plastics solutions lag further behind). There is a sense of cautious optimism expressed by waste management and recycling stakeholders that that the ideal scenario for managing plastics can be realised. It will require us as consumers to do our bit, recognise the complexities involved, and care about the end results of reprocessing as new products, and not just about throwing away our used stuff. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 17 Dr John G Hardy is a Senior Lecturer in Materials Chemistry in the Lancaster University Faculty of Science and Technology. Dr Clare Mumford is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology. The Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives: Waste Matters report details the full findings for Work Package 4 on waste management and recycling. j.g.hardy@lancaster.ac.uk; c.i.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTI5NzM=