10 April 2018

Friends of the Earth (FoE) issued a report on the joint challenges of food waste and plastic waste. Paul Vanston, CEO of INCPEN comments as follows.

‘The fundamental challenges of food waste and plastics waste that are highlighted in the FoE report are ones for all societies across the globe to step up to the plate to tackle. FoE and INCPEN are both working hard on the mission to ensure our global lands and oceans cannot continue to be used as unauthorised waste sites. We all have an obligation to see that the immense resources that go into global food and drink production are valued, used as they were meant to be, and not wasted.’

‘For these reasons, INCPEN and our members are long-term active leaders in the UK’s actions on tackling food waste, through WRAP’s Courtauld 2025 programme. On the major issue of plastics waste, INCPEN will be attending the major launch of the UK Plastics Pact on 26th April 2018 and more will be announced by WRAP on that day. It is very important to join-up these two programmes on reducing food waste and tackling plastics waste.’

‘INCPEN also supports the global and continental programmes to tackle food waste and plastic waste including delivery of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We also support the New Plastics Economy programme developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.’

In terms of the UK, INCPEN continues to welcome and support the Government’s 25-Year Environment Plan. We also need to consolidate on the extensive work since 2007 in the UK to reduce food waste, which WRAP has led, which has seen substantial progress on reducing waste in the supply chain. More now needs to be done to considerably reduce the environmental and financial costs of household food waste. Despite the challenges that remain, the UK is now often cited as a global leader in food waste reduction as a result of the efforts of WRAP and the supply chain.’

The ‘Fresher for Longer’1 project carried out in 2013 across several organisations2 linked the issues of food waste and the role and value of packaging. Importantly, it showed consumers’ perceptions and actions were complex and included that …

  • Concern about food waste increases in response to consumers’ being better informed;
  • Attitudes to packaging are linked to the ability to recycle;
  • There are significant variations in consumers’ perceptions according to ‘age’ and ‘environmental disposition’;
  • Packaging that helps products last longer, which may also be resealable, recyclable or split pack, were things that consumers welcomed in terms of helping their own behaviours in the home.

INCPEN believes the ‘Fresher for Longer’ project work now needs to be updated to understand consumers’ perceptions and behaviours in light of the many developments on global environmental understanding that have taken place in the last five years. This includes that the UN SDG’s themselves were a welcome development as recently as 2015, and important interventions such as Blue Planet 2 and Sky Oceans Rescue. Nevertheless, INCPEN also feels the views of organisations like the Green Alliance need to be heard carefully in terms of not losing sight of the valuable functions packaging plays whilst being determined to step-up to the challenges.’

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1 Information available at: http://www.wrap.org.uk/fresherforlonger
2 Fresher for Longer project supporters: British Retail Consortium, Food and Drink Federation, INCPEN, Kent Resource Partnership, Packaging Federation, and WRAP.