A large-scale model for food companies to routinely collect and reuse household packaging, including harmful plastic, is to be rolled out within 12 months as part the industry’s new Packaging Pact, launched today.
The successor to the Plastics Pact, which launched in 2018, aims to revolutionise the way consumers interact with packaging.
Wrap, which is spearheading the strategy, told The Grocer plans for a shake-up of reuse technology were now moving “beyond pilots” to the full-scale rollout of a new model, which would see the multiple use of packaging become common practice across the UK.
It unveiled nearly 100 organisations that had joined the 10-year programme by becoming signatories, including most of the major UK supermarkets and a raft of major suppliers.
The Grocer revealed in November that there was reluctance from many major companies to commit to the pact, party because of eye-watering fees of up to £42,000 to join. Many of those have now come on board, including Unilever, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Asda and the FDF.
While Coca-Cola remains a notable absentee from the pact, Wrap said the massive backing it had from industry as well as UK governments made it a unique platform to bring about transformational change.
“The UK Packaging Pact is a unique, complete system approach to unlocking packaging transitions across the value chain,” said Wrap CEO Catherine David.
“No other programme brings together the key players needed to deliver the enormous changes we must make.”
In the first year of the pact, Wrap said it expected to develop an “operational model” for reuse collection. It follows the UK government announcing plans in February for a mandatory reuse model for packaging, in alignment with plans spearheaded by the Welsh government.
Helen Bird, director of Material Systems Transformation at Wrap, told The Grocer: “We will be develop a model for reuse collect, not necessarily from kerbside but we could be using other carriers.”
“What we want to do in the first year is to develop that model. The Welsh government has signed up to the Packaging Pact and is very supportive of it and we absolutely intend to have alignment.”
Some industry sources have warned the development of reuse laws will mean the introduction of costs on manufacturers that dwarf even that of the extended producer responsibility tax.
However, Bird said the wide range of industry signatories secured for the launch of the pact meant Wrap had a strong momentum towards prioritising a switch towards a reuse economy.
The UK’s realignment with the EU on many areas of food and drink regulation also looks set to benefit the pact. Bird revealed it would be looking at development across Europe to see areas of policy and voluntary action it could “plug in and play” in the UK.
In France there have already been major moves to regulate on reuse, with hundreds of food and drink SKUs moving to reuse formats in supermarkets.
“It’s our job to put in front of our signatories the solutions, including pointing out ideas across other countries of Europe that our working well. and then for industry to take the baton,” said Bird.
The Grocer revealed in February that the UK government had committed to bring in regulation to move away from what it called the existing “take, make, throw” model.
Speaking at a launch event for the pact at London’s County Hall last night, Wrap chairman Seb Munden said the UK’s Plastics Pact had been set back “two to three years by the shocks of Covid and Brexit”.
He said the industry now needed to shift its focus from ambition to delivery. While the original pact was about setting targets, the new one was about meeting them, he said. “In 2018, many organisations didn’t even have targets. Now everyone does,” he said. “This is about hitting them. It’s about delivering all those promises you made.”
David added: ”This is not a talking shop. It’s a platform for real impact – moving further and faster, with clarity and confidence, towards a packaging system that works for people, for businesses and for the planet.”
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