Keen to be green
- Two-sided argument
- No space for idealism
- Feedstock quality
- The raw-material challenge
- Sugar cane is able to meet the food industry's carbon-reduction commitments
The path leading from fracking to plastic packaging may seem a tortuous one, but it could – paradoxically – guide the industry towards more sustainable options rather than the eked-out reliance on fossil fuels that this nascent technology seems to promise.
Md of sector organisation European Bioplastics (EuBP) Hasso von Pogrell says: “At some point, fossil fuels will start to become more expensive. Now we have fracking, which may be postponing that to some extent. It means that any price rise is being pushed back. But then again, it could have quite the opposite effect.”
He explains that debates about oil-derived plastics have always appeared quite distant to many consumers, but that the arrival of fracking is for the first time bringing it right into people's own ‘back yards’.
Two-sided argument (Return to top)
Just as there are two sides to this coin – which could work in bioplastics’ favour or against them in the short-to-medium term – EuBP sees Europe's economic slowdown cutting in two opposite directions when it comes to more sustainable packaging choices.
“It can work both ways,” says von Pogrell. “Some people do see bioplastics as an option that's too expensive in the current climate. Others say that now is precisely the time to differentiate themselves.”
At the same time, from the Courtauld Commitment on packaging to retailers' individual initiatives, there are long-term undertakings in play. In some cases, such as the ready meals market, it is plastics which risk losing out to fibre-based alternatives, according to KCC Packaging (see bottom of the article for more).
But then, post-consumer recyclate (PCR) in plastics is already proving to be a beneficiary of long-standing corporate commitments. Deputy chief executive of plastics recycler ECO Plastics Jonathan Short asks: “If a firm wants to reduce its carbon footprint, what other options are left to it? The carbon cost of our recycled material is less than one third that of virgin polymer.”
He adds: “I would say that these issues are higher up the corporate agenda than they were two years ago, and certainly more than they were five years ago.”
“The push comes from the major retailers, and we’ve invested heavily over the last three years or so to meet demand,” says Nick James, sales director at plastics packaging converter Sharpak. “We can incorporate up to 80% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET).”
The recyclers have been investing, too. Set up in 2006, ECO Plastics says it has put £17M over the past five years into quadrupling its processing capacity. Even so, Short claims that this expanded capacity (including 40Mt output of food-grade rPET) is likely to be filled over the next 12 months.
With demand outstripping supply, and Short warning that ‘recycled’ does not mean ‘cheap’, the message with regard to rPET pricing is clear.
No space for idealism (Return to top)
But there is little space for idealism. He has no time for the idea, for instance, that food-grade recycled polypropylene (PP) is a viable commercial proposition. ECO Plastic is already sorting and flaking large amounts of PP, but he says: “It won't be for food. That’ s a pipe dream. It will be for the automotive industry, for example.” Given the amount of sorting and reprocessing required for a food-grade product, the price per tonne would be prohibitive, he states.
Sharpak is less dismissive of the idea of food-grade rPP. Understandably so, given that the company last year partnered the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and recycling consultancy Nextek in trials in this precise area. “We were able to produce trays with 50% PCR,” says environmental manager Trefor Owen. “They passed food-grade testing. But this was a trial, and there are currently too many variables for it to be scaled up. It’s going to be a long-term objective, but technically, it can be done.”
With both recycled content and bioplastics, continued growth may be limited more by raw material and supply chain issues than by their customers’ willingness to invest.
Feedstock quality (Return to top)
For recyclers, the quality of baled feedstock is a growing concern. Short at ECO Plastics believes the government needs to take urgent action on the Materials Recovery Facility code of practice, the UK’s Packaging Recovery Note system and the regulations regarding the shipment of waste. “All of these need attention before I personally feel I could invest further,” he says.
A threat to feedstock availability rather than quality could be posed by energy from waste (EfW) incineration. “Plastics are oil,” says Short. “When you’ve got a product that can be reinvented over and over, you'd be mad to burn it.”
But that is precisely what is happening in Germany, he argues, where there is EfW overcapacity. “If we want to see where we could be in 10 or 15 years’ time, we need to look at Germany,” he says. “We could end up with no feedstock.”
These risks to recycling from EfW overcapacity were outlined in a recent report from environmental consultancy Eunomia.
Both the Environmental Services Association and Chartered Institute of Waste Management (CIWM) have distanced themselves from the report. Chief executive of the CIWM Steve Lee said in a statement: “Even if we match European best practice [in recycling], we still need to work harder to recover energy from what's left over.” The CIWM points to several EU countries that have higher levels of both recycling and EfW than the UK.
CIWM deputy chief executive Chris Murphy adds: “We’re sure that EfW is finding other sources of material. In any case, in the Nordic countries and in Germany, for instance, it’s actually illegal to incinerate anything that can be recycled.” The same would be true for the UK, he says.
What is clear, according to the CIWM, is that the “low-hanging fruit has gone”, when it comes to recycling. Those collecting, sorting and recycling are having to work much harder to get any growth from what remains of the packaging waste stream.
“So, for instance, the black trays used for various foods are currently not recyclable,” says Murphy. “But there’s a lot of work going on with WRAP to make them more easily identified.”
More broadly, says Sharpak, WRAP has identified the ‘pots, tubs and trays’ fraction as the one to tackle next after bottles. “The waste targets now mean that government is looking for 5% annual growth in plastics packaging recycling every year up to 2017, with a 57% recycling rate as the objective,” says Owen. “It will be extremely tough to sustain this.”
The raw-material challenge (Return to top)
For many bioplastics, the raw-material challenge is a continued reliance on ‘first-generation’ food crops as feedstock for bioplastics processes. Says EuBP’s von Pogrell: “We know the European Commission and others are trying to promote the use of biomass in general and a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. But they are doing this by promoting second-generation feedstock.”
‘Second-generation’ is typically used to describe ligno-cellulosic materials, as opposed to ‘first-generation’ crops which might be rich in fermentable sugars, for instance.
EuBP quotes a recent report from German renewable resources consultancy the nova-Institut which argues that, even after satisfying expanding human food requirements, sufficient arable land would remain to allow crops for other purposes. On this premise, the report maintains, the use of ‘first generation’ crops for bioplastics feedstock should be assessed purely on the basis of efficiency.
These criteria should prevail over any measure of supposed ethical acceptability, von Pogrell believes. “Of course, a lot of people are going to keep moving to ‘second generation’ sources,” he adds. “Because if you can state this in your marketing, it probably sounds better.”
Pinned down by targets and undertakings, retailers and other larger corporate players seem likely to continue their migration towards greater use of recycled content and – to a lesser extent – bioplastics. The quantity and quality of feedstock could, in the longer-term, represent a greater risk for both.
Sugar cane is able to meet the food industry's carbon-reduction commitments (Return to top)
Naturally, plastics have not cornered the market in sustainable packaging. Nor do they have a monopoly in trade-offs between higher costs and smaller carbon footprints.
Kevin Clarke’s company KCC Packaging is marketing trays made from sugar cane waste fibre. Unlike other forms of ready meal packaging, specifically aluminium or crystalline polyethylene terephthalate (CPET), it is either carbon neutral or better than neutral, he estimates. The energy consumed in production is much lower than with either. It is also home compostable.
“We’ve been looking for a way to seal the tray and give it a barrier,” says Clarke. “There appeared to be no material that didn’t negate all of the other benefits. But now we believe we’ve found the solution, and are involved in extended line trials. We’ve got the major UK retailers interested, though it is difficult to predict when we'll see product arriving on the shelf.”
But is it trickier in the current climate converting ‘interest’ into ‘business’? “Since 2008, yes, people have always expressed interest in these materials,” he says. “But getting a company to move off its butt is harder than it was before. Even then, it was hard enough.”
Clarke believes that, while in pilot quantities, trays in his material could be priced at twice the level of CPET.
But he claims that long-term trends regarding the environment are only moving in one direction, and carbon reduction commitments are not being put on hold until healthier economic times return.
