GRJ0047

Written evidence submitted by BBIA

About BBIA

BBIA is a membership organisation, which represents manufacturers and distributors of materials and products that have a common origin in being partially or wholly plant-based, and a common end-of-life in being biodegradable in certified environments.  These include materials like compostable packaging but also insulation materials, lubricants, and building blocks for the chemistry industry.  Members include TIPA, BASF, Novamont, BIOTEC, Planglow, Wool Cool Packaging, Parkside Packaging, Futamura, Natureworks, Vegware, and the REA (full member list at https://bbia.org.uk/bbia/membership/).  Members’ activities can be understood in the wider context of the bioeconomy, which has a value of £220bn annually and employs some five million people, including in farming. 

Background

Compostable packaging is designed to be a carrier of food waste.  The two can be discarded together and treated safely in home or industrial compost facilities. The UK has 46 composting plants authorised to accept food waste with further capacity planned to accommodate mandatory food collections by 2023. In countries like Italy, Austria, Scotland and Ireland, parts of Spain, and in cities like Copenhagen, Munich and San Francisco, compostable packaging is already collected via organic waste bins while numerous local authorities in the UK recommend residents to discard their food waste in a compostable bin liner. Multiple studies confirm the viability of treating compostable packaging in industrial compost facilities.[1]

However, beyond their environmental benefits, these technologies also have the potential to create thousands of green jobs in the UK, within the International Labour Organisation criteria which the committee has set out as its guiding principle.  Even before the present development of compostable technologies and the planned roll-out of food waste schemes around the country, the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated that there is the potential to create more than 35,000 green jobs in the UK across the whole spectrum of biowaste collections, compostables production and distribution,  if the policy environment is supportive to bioplastics.[2] 

As the UK emerges from the COVID crisis, government should look at both how to support these jobs, and more particularly at how to support the technologies which create them.  Doing so would have clearly positive environmental impacts – which both minimise waste and pollution and protect ecosystems and biodiversity – while also stimulating economic growth.  Indeed, there is an opportunity for the UK to become a leader in this field among European nations.   Above all, such policies are generally of zero to low cost to the UK Exchequer.

Drawing heavily on the CEBR research, this submission gives further details of the job creation potential from bioplastics, and sets out three recommendations for policy change to catalyse that potential.

UK bioeconomy

The UK bioeconomy strategy envisages that the global market in bioplastics will grow to £33bn by 2022.[3]  The strategy commits the UK government to “work across policy areas to ensure that the regulatory landscape is in place to allow the bioeconomy to thrive”.  To make this commitment real, a cross-government recognition of the role of bioplastics is necessary, including most urgently a review of the Treasury decision to levy a charge on compostable materials through the proposed plastic packaging tax.

Italy leading the way

At a European level, Italy is leading the way in the shift away from conventional plastics to sustainable alternatives, having become the first country in the EU to ban the distribution of traditional plastic bags in 2011, thus allowing for the commercialisation of biodegradable single-use and long-life reusable bags.  The Plastic Consult for Bioplastiche[4] finds (see Figure 1) that the overall use of plastic can be reduced by substitution with compostable alternatives. It finds that since 2013 there has been a decisive trend in in Italy, reducing the number of conventional carrier bags used (from 91,700 tonnes to 23,000 tonnes), and a steadily rising trend of the use of compostable alternatives (from 26,300 tonnes to 54,000 tonnes). Overall, usage of single-use bags has reduced by 34%. 

This Italian legislation is clear evidence of how zero-cost Government intervention can stimulate investment, innovation and growth in the field of bioplastics, while combatting litter and waste.

The bioplastics industry is also well-established in the Italian economy. While the number of companies has grown by 92% to 275 from 2012 to 2019, the sectorial revenue has grown by 103% to €745m and the number of employees in the sector by 106% to 2.645.  A key factor in the success of the bioplastics industry in Italy is the introduction of policy and regulations that have stimulated the bioplastic value and supply chains.

In 2015 France joined Italy in banning all non-biodegradable plastic bags, and from 2017 has required that all fresh produce bags (very thin bags for fruit and vegetables) are home compostable according to a new French standard[5], consisting of a minimum level of bio-based material.  From 2020 Ireland has introduced its Brown Bin scheme to standardise the collection of food waste across the nation and certified compostable packaging can be collected in the same bin.[6] Analysis by the European Compost Network suggests that for every 1,000 tonnes of biowaste collected and recycled 1.5 jobs are created.[7] 

Potential for the UK

CEBR’s more in-depth 2015 analysis[8] suggests that – in the previous year – the direct employment contribution of the aggregate bioplastics sector in the UK alone amounted to 542 full-time equivalents (FTEs). With an employment multiplier of 1.93, they estimate that the aggregate employment contribution of the aggregate bioplastics sector, including direct, indirect and induced impacts, totalled approximately 1,045 FTEs.  There is the potential to increase this number by a factor of 34 in the right policy environment.

The industry expects that, with a supportive policy environment, it could achieve a production capacity of 120 thousand tonnes of compostable bioplastics, as a substitute for conventional plastics that currently pollute food waste streams as they are used for food waste collections, in tea bags, coffee pods, fruit and vegetable bags, as carrier bags etc. 

Based on manufacturing at the 120,000 tonnes level CEBR further estimate that the combined sub-sectors of manufacturing bioplastics in primary form, manufacturing bioplastics in final form (conversion) and wholesale and retail of bioplastic products (traders and retailers), the potential future direct employment contribution is 14,403 FTEs. With an output multiplier of 3.59, CEBR estimates that the aggregate employment contribution of the bioplastics sector, including direct, indirect and induced impacts, will total 35,447 FTEs. These figures are detailed in the table below.

Extracted from, CEBR, The future potential economic impacts of a bio-plastics industry in the UK

According to the CEBR analysis, with an appropriate legislative framework, the UK bioplastics market will be able to produce approximately 40,000 tonnes of packaging, 40,000 tonnes of carrier bags, 20,000 tonnes organic waste caddy liners and 20,000 tonnes of tableware. The potential for this volume of manufacturing is supported by a 2019 study undertaken by the consultancy Ricardo[9], which estimates an even greater total market potential of 138,000 tonnes.

However, the current policy environment surrounding the UK bioplastics industry is hostile with no recognition of the role of these materials either in the present Environment Bill or in the proposed plastics packaging tax.

Complementary indirect policies should also be considered to ensure the development of a bioplastics industry. For example, the minimum charges levied on plastic carrier bags across the four nations of the UK do not mandate the use of bioplastic carrier bags instead,as Italy has done. . When the charge was introduced in England in 2014, the government said it would consider such an initiative in future, but successive administrations have failed to do so. 

Enabling consumers to adopt bioplastic bags would have a positive impact on food waste collection schemes presently operating in over 50% of English local authorities and due to be rolled out across the remainder by end 2023.  This would in turn help to increase consumer understanding of compostable materials and reduce the volume of organic waste needing disposal in landfill or incineration.  This reform would increase organic recycling rates and return more nutrients and essential organic matter back to agricultural soils. A recent study by the consultancy Sancroft International underlines the net benefits to the nation in using compostable materials for food waste collection and treatment. [10]

Recommendations

The arguments for embracing compostable materials as part of England’s waste and resources strategy are primarily environmental, but independent analysis shows there is also a strong economic basis for doing so.  Since the economy is in any case a wholly owned subsidiary of the natural environment, protecting the latter is critical to boost the former. 

To create green jobs in the bioplastics sector and to reduce plastic pollution in the natural environment, we suggest three key recommendations for the Committee to consider for its report:

1. An urgent review of the proposed UK plastics packaging tax, which at present treats compostable materials in the same way as conventional, polluting plastics.  Unchecked, this could have a devastating effect on the bioplastics sector, choking off employment opportunities and creating a perverse disincentive to compostable technologies.
2. A clear recognition for the role of compostable materials in the Environment Bill, namely:
1. to expressly mandate the collection of compostable materials alongside food waste, as schemes are rolled out nationwide in 2023
2. to expressly mandate the provision of compostable caddy liners for the collection of food waste, thereby improving both the quality and the quantity of what is collected while promoting employment in the bioplastics industry
3. to expressly mandate bioplastic carrier bags as a substitute for single use carrier bags, banning non-compostable carrier bags as Italy has done.

As a recent Pew Charitable Trusts/SystemIQ report, Breaking the Plastic Wave acknowledged, substituting conventional plastic packaging with compostable materials is a key part of the mix, when it comes to reducing plastic pollution in the oceans and the soil.[11] These recommendations would ensure a clear recognition for their role in the UK’s waste and resources strategies, and create tens of thousands of green jobs in the process.

January 2021