Plastic Bottle Tracker (PBT)
Bob Earll 3/10/2017 – See News below – October 24th – Four articles
Campaigners and Defra have claimed the success of reducing the use, waste and litter arising from plastic bags. Focused campaigns on particular items have therefore received some encouragement, but what is the next high priority target? There are lots of NGO’s in UK and around the world working on litter and plastic bottles in particular. The Green Alliance have suggested that plastic bottles could be the next most effective quick win. There seems to be no mechanism* to decide the priority or the target so I’m suggesting plastic bottles. *(I’d be pleased to hear from anyone who knows of such a mechanism). Keeping track of the explosion of activity on litter and targeted item campaigns is a challenge so I have decided to start a tracker blog on plastic bottles*. (*Since this seems like something mainstream NGOs could do I’d welcome hearing about any similar projects so I could publicise their work and not have to do it myself!). This tracker blog will highlight the progress of the different campaigns on finding solutions to the plastic bottle issue roughly once a month.
NEWS
October 24th – Four articles:
1. Plastic bottle tracker – EAC Committee review and
EAC evidence and video from the 17/10 should be on the EAC website by the 23rd http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/environmental-audit-committee/news-parliament-2017/disposable-packaging-second-ev-17-19/
Evidence session videos with Tuesday 17 October:
- Dr. Sue Kinsey, Senior Pollution Policy Officer, Marine Conservation Society
- Fiona Llewellyn, Project Manager, #OneLess Campaign
- Hugo Tagholm, Chief Executive, Surfers Against Sewage
- Derek Robertson, Chief Executive Officer, Keep Scotland Beautiful
- At 11.15am
- Dr. Chris Sherrington, Head of Environmental Policy, Eunomia Research and Consulting
- Nick Brown, Head of Sustainability, Coca-Cola European Partners
- John Mayhew, Director, Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland
- Sam Harding, Litter Programme Director, Campaign to Protect Rural England
2. Plastic bottle deposit return scheme could save England’s councils £35m a year
Cash-strapped councils would save money thanks to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as having less recycling bins to collect, says report commissioned by Keep Britain Tidy, the Marine Conservation Society, Surfers Against Sewage, Campaign to Protect Rural England and Reloop. It was carried out by environmental research group Eunomia.
3. Greenpeace Coke Campaign goes Global For the past few months, we have been campaigning for Coke to stop choking our oceans. Coca Cola are the largest soft drinks company in the world. We estimated that globally they produce 100 billion single use plastic bottles every year, a figure that’s going up and up with a 2% increase since last year.
4. High-street outlets move to ditch plastic amid environmental concerns
Pret A Manger becomes the latest to act by offering free filtered water and selling empty glass bottles
NEWS
October 3rd – 4 items Four new articles:
- Mr Gove announces a four week consultation on the use of deposit return schemes (Oct 3rd, 2017)
- The Environmental Audit Committee is relaunching its predecessor’s inquiry into Disposable Coffee Cups and Plastic Bottles. The previous Committee’s inquiry received over 100 submissions of evidence. The General Election was called before the Committee could complete its inquiry. Previous inquiry: Coffee Cups and Plastic Bottles: disposable packaging inquiry
- Welsh Government investigating deposit return schemes – MCS Report
- American National parks stopped selling plastic bottles which demonstrated the ban stopped littering and then Trump rescinded this – what leadership can do!
Sept 2017
Scottish Plastic Bottle Deposit Return Scheme Catherine Gemmell, Scotland Conservation Officer said: “As a founding partner in the Have You Got The Bottle campaign, we are absolutely thrilled with today’s announcement. We are extremely hopeful, having seen the thorough investigation of options for deposit return systems done by Scottish Government to date, that we’ll hear the First Minister give a green light for a full working deposit return system in Scotland. We see this as the simplest next step to help turn the tide on plastic, glass and metal drinks containers on our beaches. We hope that this will inspire similar systems throughout the UK.”
4th August 2017 Green Alliance Recycling plastic bottles: A third in one step ‘The single most effective action would be to recycle all plastic bottles, which account for 33 per cent of marine plastic litter, through a deposit return scheme. This would involve a small charge being placed on drink containers at the point of sale (between 5p and 20p) that can later be redeemed when the packaging is returned to an authorised centre or the original seller. Such schemes are widely implemented abroad and can virtually eliminate beverage litter. In Germany, for instance, nearly 100 per cent of plastic bottles are returned for recycling, compared to only 57 per cent in the UK.’
4th August Packaging News Environment minister Thérèse Coffey has visited Europe’s largest plastic bottle recycling facility to see how Coca-Cola plans to double its recycled PET usage.
SOLUTIONS
Deposit Return Schemes
4th August 2017 Green Alliance UK needs bottle deposit scheme to cut plastic litter in oceans, says think tank
30/6/2017 MCS Scotland Deposit returns a step closer for Scotland
2016 Surfers Against Sewage promote Deposit Return Schemes – petition
May 2015 Zero waste Scotland Deposit Return scheme – research on how this might work
Recycling
July 11th 2017 Guardian Coca-Cola to increase amount of recycled plastic in its bottles
2017 Greenpeace campaign targets Coca-Cola re the % of recycled plastic in bottles
Reusable bottles
2017 OneLess Campaign Coalition Abandoning plastic water bottles in favour of filling refillable bottles with tap water
THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
4th August 2017 Green Alliance Five simple solutions to Michael Gove’s plastic problem
June 28th 2017 Guardian: A million bottles a minute: world’s plastic binge ‘as dangerous as climate change’
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