FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 5 Foreword Subscribe online at lancaster.ac.uk/fiftyfour SUBSCRIBE A s we prepare for the party to celebrate our transition into magazine adulthood, we find ourselves facing a dilemma. No good party is complete without party food, and yet raiding the supermarket to buy endless supplies of sandwiches, cocktail sausages, cakes, and puff pastries, leaves open the very real prospect of creating a huge pile of waste come the end of the festivities. What should we do with the plastic containers? How do we recycle the soft plastic wraps? Should we have bought these items in the first place? Were there other alternatives with non-plastic packaging that would be better for the environment? Should all the plastic go in the same recycling bin? What needs to be cleaned and what should be thrown away? So many questions, it almost makes us wonder if throwing a party is worth it in the first place. Fortunately, we have the Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives (PPiPL) team to help. Long-time readers of Fifty Four Degrees may remember that a little over two-anda-half years ago, the PPiPL team took over this publication to outline the work they were just beginning to undertake on investigating consumer attitudes and behaviours around plastic packaging and recycling. Now, they have come back to tell us what they have found, and to look at what the future might hold for household recycling, packaging manufacturing and retailing, and waste management and disposal. PPiPL has assembled experts from across Lancaster University, and has brought in partners from local government, retail, manufacturing, and waste management, to gain real-life insights that can have a proper impact. You will hear from the team and their partners at Lancaster City Council and Booths supermarkets, on the difficulties of improving levels of recycling, on how consumer attitudes do not always match their behaviours, and on the actions needs from central government level on down to address the challenges in the present system. Project leaders Alison Stowell and Maria Piacentini outline PPiPL’s overall aims and outcomes, and we are then able to delve deeper into specific areas of the work, from improving practices among both consumers and manufacturers, to practical applications in supermarkets and within council recycling collections. We also see how the work has now been carried on to Malaysia, in partnership with Sunway University. PPiPL is a project that embodies our commitment to making a positive impact on not just business and organisational behaviour, but on our region as a whole. I hope that the findings and outcomes of the project can play their part in addressing what is an issue we all recognise but do not always address in our actions. Welcome to Issue 21 of Fifty Four Degrees! Professor Claire Leitch Executive Dean Lancaster University Management School
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