'Brutal' consequences of single-use plastic tax threaten to undermine it

The war on plastic has seen major breakthroughs on a global and national level in the past week.

After last week’s landmark announcement by Wrap on plans to scrap packaging on fresh fruit & veg, yesterday came news of an historic agreement by world leaders to develop a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution.

The resolution, agreed in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, covers the “full lifecycle” of plastics. It has been hailed as the most important since the Paris Agreement on climate in 2015.

Closer to home, UK supermarkets are also stepping up the pace, with a new coalition planning an industry-wide refill trial that will see refill stations rolled out across stores and online, alongside a bulk delivery service that's being hailed as an industry first.

But despite these positive steps, it appears the government's key intervention in the battle risks descending into shambles.

The Grocer today revealed how surging prices for food-grade recycled content are threatening to wreak havoc with the much-heralded single-use plastic tax, which comes into force next month.

With the cost of food-grade recycled plastic material shooting up by as much as 70% in the past year, as suppliers scramble to get hold of the more environmentally friendly option, it is now thought many companies are minded to living with the burden of the tax. This is despite the £200/tonne hit, on the grounds it is a “drop in the ocean” compared with the cost of recycled plastic material.

The situation, particularly for small to medium suppliers, is said to be “brutal”.

This would, of course, completely defeat the object of the tax. And it makes a mockery of the decision to push ahead with it before establishing a commercially viable market for recycled plastic and a system that would enable suppliers and consumers to work together in the fight.

With extended producer responsibility not due to come into force until 2023/24 and the long-delayed deposit return scheme not now due until the end of 2024 at the earliest, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a plastic one, for that matter) to work out that it might be best to wait until afterwards to bring in the tax.

But, not for the first time (or the last, no doubt), politics won the day and the government pushed on regardless, despite warnings from across the supply chain.

Consumers are rightly sceptical about resistance to change from industry when it comes to plastic, and yesterday’s agreement in Kenya shows the appetite for change is growing, despite other dreadful events such as the all-too-real war in Ukraine and the ongoing Covid pandemic.

But time and again there has been a lack of joined-up thinking and a disconnect between vote-winning PR and the real situation on the ground.

With consumers facing a reported £300m cost because of the tax, at a time when inflation is already a burning issue, it’s not just the industry that is going to be left picking up the pieces.