Environment organisations say government delays on waste and packaging reform will lead to unnecessary waste this Christmas and are calling on the Government to prioritise plans to make businesses tackle waste in 2023.
The environment organisations issuing the call include Wildlife and Countryside Link, Greenpeace UK, Marine Conservation Society CEO, WWF-UK and Keep Britain Tidy.
The call comes as Wildlife and Countryside Link have published new estimates on the amount of plastic and other packaging waste that it says will end up in landfill or will be incinerated this Christmas.
Wildlife and Countryside Link estimates that around 104,946 tonnes of plastic packaging are likely to end up burnt, in landfill, or exported overseas over the festive period.
Other estimates include 2,164 tonnes of aluminium foil could be thrown away and not recycled this Christmas, up to 109km2 of Christmas wrapping paper could end up in the waste bin and approximately 277,400 tonnes of cardboard are “likely” to be used over the holidays.
Wildlife and Countryside Link says all of the estimated figures in this release are calculated by updating previous estimates utilising 2021 waste statistics. The organisation continues that the estimates assume that Christmas waste amounts will have increased in line with annual changes in both waste and recycling rates.
Businesses shouldn’t be allowed to barrage consumers with unnecessary packaging or place badly-designed single-use items on the market.
Wildlife and Countryside Link says that bans on items alone are not enough to reduce waste. Instead, the environmental groups are urging the Government to go further in its plans to cut excess waste at the source of production, to prevent one throw-away item from being replaced with another.
Environment groups have called for greater government ambition, and think the Government should also set targets for reducing single-use plastic by half by 2025, and halving resource consumption by 2030.
The group continues that these targets should be backed up by strong policy measures to disincentivise excess packaging and waste.
This should include delivering Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging, a tougher plastic packaging tax which raises the required 30% minimum recycled content requirement and the £200 per tonne penalty for not meeting the threshold, bans on the “worst offending” single-use plastic items and require large retailers to promote and incentivise reuse in store.
Industry-led voluntary initiatives have failed to deliver the scale of change we need.
CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link, Richard Benwell, said: “Christmas can be bags of fun without massive bags of landfill, but too often consumers end up pushed toward waste by the choices on offer.
“Businesses shouldn’t be allowed to barrage consumers with unnecessary packaging or place badly-designed single-use items on the market. Who wants to see extra plastic and cardboard bulking out the shelves or fragile single-use items that end up in our rivers and ocean?
“Industry-led voluntary initiatives have failed to deliver the scale of change we need, and 2022 has seen government plans to tackle waste fall far behind track. Next year, government should prioritise its Deposit Return and Producer Responsibility plans, so that we can finally stem the flow of unnecessary waste.”
