Waste reduction – not just recycling – should be the focus for UK waste management, says Victoria Hutchin, associate waste & resource management consultant at WYG.
Re-reading the Resources and Waste Management Strategy for the nth time against the backdrop of the BBC series War on Plastic, continuing actions of Extinction Rebellion, and David Attenborough giving evidence to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee brings home the significance of a surprising omission: reducing consumption.
The Strategy makes several references to waste minimisation, including support to increase reuse and remanufacturing, and the promotion of more reusable items (eg, coffee cups and carrier bags); however, there are very few concrete actions on how we will significantly affect resource consumption.
Economic growth is heavily dependent on consumerism and the public continuing to buy things, but this is patently not sustainable against the backdrop of unprecedented human climate impacts, decreasing air quality and biodiversity losses.
The Strategy seems to focus on actions broadly fitting into the following two areas: 1) Measures to incentivise the reduction of unnecessary and difficult to recycle packaging, and 2) Measures to support the reduction in consumer and business food waste.
The key focus of the chapter dedicated to “helping consumers take more considered actions” is sadly not reducing consumption. Instead, it is promoting better understanding of the sustainability impacts of the products people buy, the implication being that consumers will be encouraged to buy sustainably and see waste as a resource, rather than buying less.
Perhaps this is no surprise given that the economic model of the western world is predicated on consumption. In 1955, Victor Lebow (an economist, retail analyst and author) stated “our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we seek our spiritual and our ego satisfaction in consumption”, and little has changed.
Fifty years later, Richard Girling said in his book, Rubbish! Dirt on Our Hands and Crisis Ahead, “waste has always been a badge of affluence”.
Planned obsolescence
Planned obsolescence is a business strategy that consumers have long been critical of, believing that products do not last as long as they once did or as one would reasonably expect.
It is questionable whether the true cause is really a product’s planned or programmed expiry, or whether it is a result of poor-quality parts driven by the race to the bottom.
But in 2017, Apple openly admitted to slowing down the speeds of its older devices over time, purportedly to conserve the life of ageing and notoriously difficult to replace batteries, although the sceptics among us are likely to view this as a deliberate action by Apple to encourage people to upgrade to a newer model.
One challenge going forward is how to get companies to move towards an entirely new business model centred on services rather than ownership.
This could be a means of getting from A to B rather than the need to own a car, or producing modular, repairable and upgradeable products that are easy to dismantle and easy to reconstruct.
Disruptive business models
There are emerging examples of such disruptive business models which not only provide services instead of products but also solve an existing problem – alternatives to conventional taxis which allow service users to book via an app in a totally cashless transaction.
The Strategy focuses on existing and proposed voluntary agreements such as the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) and the VinylPlus Initiative (a voluntary commitment representing the whole value chain of the PVC industry) and improving transparency of companies’ eco-credentials to allow consumers to make more informed buying decisions.
Whilst these are undoubtedly a step in the right direction, they are likely to influence the few (both businesses and consumers), rather than the majority.
What the Strategy fails to do is set out a practical plan to change the mindset of the public and reduce consumerism. There is a trade-off between environmental protection and the need for economic stability, but we are slowly starting to see our economy adapt.
Economic growth is heavily dependent on consumerism and the public continuing to buy things, but this is patently not sustainable against the backdrop of unprecedented human climate impacts, decreasing air quality and biodiversity losses.
Backlash
The general public is voicing widespread backlash against unsustainable practices of corporations, expressing greater interest than ever in the fine details how products are made and where the materials come from matter.
A further challenge is the need for mass behaviour change, getting people to move from their existing and ‘easy’ habits to ones which might at first seem more difficult.
If we are to see real changes in behaviour, products need to be not just repairable but upgradeable too
Added to this is the perception around repairing versus replacing, with the former being associated with maintaining and keeping something going, and the latter with newness, innovation, design and improvement.
If we are to see real changes in behaviour, products need to be not just repairable but upgradeable too.
Sweden has reduced the VAT on repairs to bicycles, clothes and shoes from 25 percent to 12 percent and on white goods consumers can claim back income tax due on the person doing the work.
It is likely that the shift in economic models will need to largely be driven by consumers: abandoning fast fashion, refusing to buy over-packaged produce, and calling out unsustainable behaviours on social media. Sadly, the greater impact on producers at the moment seems to be coming from reputational risks associated with the negative press around wasteful decisions, as opposed to doing the right thing because it is simply the right thing to do.
