Plastics Pact must highlight successes to win public support

Sadly one of the biggest landmarks yet in the industry’s battle against plastic got precious little coverage, in national or social media, yesterday. 

In fact, plans by Boots to ditch plastic bags got far more attention than the pledges by 76 companies to get rid of disposable cutlery, polystyrene packaging, plastic straws, cotton buds with plastic stems, plastic stirrers, oxo-degradables, PVC packaging and disposable plates and bowls by the same time.

While it’s good to see Wrap, which is overseeing the UK Plastics Pact, finally get on and identify the list of products that should be on the banned list, the lack of cut-through shows the need for a much more effective job, not just in PR, but in measuring and demonstrating progress.

When Wrap brought out what was supposed to be a landmark report into the Pact last month, it was noticeably full of holes. Thankfully this week’s list of products is more comprehensive and easy for the public – and politicians – to understand.

But it still comes across as being behind the agenda-setting curve. No doubt behind the scenes there has been not only a great difference in the speed at which different members of the Pact have reacted to the plastic challenge, but also disagreement over how far the pledges should go. This might explain why yesterday’s document came out months after the likes of Tesco had published a similar list of the products it considers plastic non grata.

And while, finally, the plastic blacklist has been published – with a second list of 19 products including plastic bags, plastic film packaging and fruit & veg net bags, which the Pact aims to rid by 2025 – there will no doubt be questions over the timeframe. If Boots can do it by 2020 why not the rest? 

Wrap’s Plastics Pact: is it making enough progress?

The Plastics Pact has so far failed to give the impression that the industry is acting in a joined-up manner. And with the government’s swingeing budget cuts to Wrap, plus the fact that it is also tackling issues like food waste, all the while wrestling with competing companies’ CSR agendas, it was always going to be difficult.

The steady trickle of piecemeal announcements from individual cogs in the wheel mean very little to campaigners expecting seismic change.

As Louise Edge, head of Greenpeace UK’s ocean plastics campaign, told The Grocer recently: “The public is demanding strong action, but it’s clear that one year on from companies signing their Pact pledges, most simply aren’t delivering it.

“Changing pizza bases and removing plastic cutlery from company HQs just won’t cut it.”

As well as thinking of how it can get its message across more effectively – getting Defra secretary Michael Gove more on board, now he’s not otherwise pre-occupied, might be a good start – it’s vital that Wrap soon comes up with a way of measuring progress.

It was disappointing in May to learn that no measurement of the Pact’s progress would come out until the autumn at least. But when it does, this can at last begin to win the reputational battle over plastic with convincing evidence that the industry is responding, even if it means laggards might have to be named and shamed in the process.