11 May A push for a greener future? Corporations take hold of recycling future
News that Costa Coffee vow to recycle as many disposable cups as they sell by 2020 comes as a welcome step by the corporation as the UK tries to tackle its recycling waste problem.
Their plan is to incentivise waste collection firms by offering a £70 supplement per tonne of waste they collect. Figures from the BBC Reality Check team stated that in 2011, 99.75% of disposable coffee cups were either incinerated, exported or sent to landfill. Costa aims to become the first major “coffee cup neutral” chain.
Bradley Smith, director of marketing and sales at Grundon, a waste management company, said “This provides increased stability and confidence in the market, which will help waste management companies like Grundon to extend paper cup recycling services to more customers.”
Costa are releasing this news not long after supermarket chain Waitrose announced that they are to stop all disposable cups being used in stores from the Autumn of this year. As it stands, members of the ‘myWaitrose’ loyalty scheme receive a free coffee whenever they shop. This is something that is set to continue, but their customers must now bring in their own reusable cup if they want to continue this privilege.
It’s head of sustainability, Tor Harris, said of the upcoming change, “We realise this is a major change, but we believe removing all takeaway disposable cups is the right thing to do for our business and are confident the majority of customers will support the environmental benefits.”
This will come as positive news for environmental campaigners, especially considering in March the government rejected the idea of introducing a 25 pence ‘Latte Levy’ which would see an extra charge placed on all disposable coffee cup purchases. This is despite a cross-party committee agreeing that it would be the most effective way forward in dealing with our waste disposal difficulty.
Seemingly reluctant to take steps to resolve this issue, it may be down to both packaging companies and retailers to take the problem in to their own hands. Justin Kempson of Charpak Ltd, a vacuum forming plastic packaging company based in Cambridgeshire believes that the consumer reaction and media reaction to plastics is taking away from how the recycling industry needs “innovation” in how and what is recycled.
Charpak have teamed up with a waste contractor to try and improve the process of waste collection in the local area, something Justin hopes will be able to move throughout the country. He said “There are lots of companies like ours who could do the same thing in their locality. They’re all round the country so you could actually do it all around the country and have localised, circular [plastic] economies.”
The Process of Recycling
Despite the media foray around increased levels of packaging, a survey by Kantar Worldpanel of over 5000 people showed that around two thirds of consumers would be unwilling to pay a higher price for plastic free packaging, a staggering figure considering the environmental pressure we now face to reduce our wastage.
This surely entails that if the government are unwilling to act and consumers are unwilling to pay more, it will be down to the retailers and suppliers to find a cost effective manner of reducing this countries waste and increasing recycling levels.
The full interview with Justin Kempson is available below.
