Outside a popular latte-and-lunch-food chain in central London, busy office workers rush in and out, clutching takeaway coffee cups, superfood salads and typically disappointing sandwiches. Sarah, a 29-year-old graphic designer, was one of them.
Sarah eats organic as much as possible, she only buys from ethical fashion brands and supports Fairtrade products. She tries to buy her fruit and vegetables from the local farmers’ market and is in the midst of lobbying her landlords to install solar panels in the block of flats where she lives. I asked her, as an environmentally-minded person, whether she gave any thought to the packaging from the coffee cups and salad containers she bought multiple times per week.
“I have checked before and I know that this place has completely recyclable wrapping,” she said. “I’d rather avoid it altogether but it seems like a fairly necessary evil, and I figure as long as I put it in the recycling bin at work it can’t be that bad.”
A lot of us believe that there’s no alternative to the layers of plastic film we discard on a weekly basis, and that recycling it is the best we can do. In fact, recycling food and drink packaging is a lot more complex than it seems.
Whilst the packaging for your ham and cheese sandwich may be fairly easy to recycle, more and more we’re opting to buy salads, soups or hot dishes, and the amount of food left on the material means it can’t be recycled. The packaging then ends up in landfill or incinerators, so there’s no real benefit to it being recyclable in the first place.
There is a fairly straightforward solution to this dilemma, and that’s to make packaging not only recyclable but also compostable, so that if the former isn’t possible as least there’s another option that avoids increasing your carbon footprint. But with even the most sustainability-focused people confused as to the role of compostable materials versus recyclable ones, it becomes less appealing for big brands to make the investment. It seems that phase one is to make people care, but what’s the best way to do that?
“It’s quite complex but there are a number of solutions,” explains Dipesh Suralia, business development manager at London Bio Packaging, which supplies compostable packaging to Farmstand. “There is a possibility that the 5p plastic bag tax could be implemented in relation to compostable cups for instance, but the impact this will have is still unknown. I certainly feel we need better legislation and partnerships to make this happen.”
Since government organisations aren’t prioritising education on these issues and big companies aren’t taking the lead to implement solutions, the burden falls on small and independent businesses to try and move the conversation about packaging on from simply “recyclable” (good) and “non-recyclable” (bad).
Javier Rojo is the founder of Quantum Waste, which works with businesses such as Farmstand to offer a full recycling solutions, including composting. With all the options out there, he doesn’t believe that it’s the practicalities or logistics that make big companies reticent to move forward. “Cost is cited as a big factor, but when you look at the cost of packaging compared to the cost of everything else in an average restaurant, it doesn’t even compare. The key thing is lack of education and inertia.”
Small and independent businesses are often at the forefront of ethical and sustainability progress because they’re run by a small team who are passionate about the issues. For the big brands that you see on every street corner in every city in the country, decision-making is not only a much longer and more convoluted process, but stakeholders and investors expect to see a return on investment, something which compostable packaging can only offer when consumers start to understand its value.
Mr Rojo has seen a huge improvement in understanding and perception of sustainability issues the past few years, and hopes this trend will continue, but is also worried about the possibility of a backlash, with consumers and businesses focusing more on cost and immediate consequence than the bigger picture. He said: “There is an ideology that being green goes against the economy, and that if you’re green it will harm your ability to compete, when it’s probably the other way around. In a world with a growing population and scarcity of resources, being environmentally friendly can actually be a competitive advantage.”
With access to compostable packaging no longer an issue, and cost relatively irrelevant in the broader context, a lack of understanding and interest from the general public is really the only thing keeping us from moving forward with compostable packaging on a larger scale.
“I had no idea this was a thing,” said Sarah, surprised by the information. “We should all start asking at our local cafes and restaurants whether their packaging is compostable and looking for an alternative if it’s not. It’s the only way it’ll become the norm, just like recyclable is now.”
At Farmstand, more than half of our packaging in recyclable and nearly 50% is compostable. We’re proud to say that none of our waste ends up in landfill, and we’re also getting much closer to our goal of being 100% carbon neutral.
