04/10/2023
If you have visited a coffee outlet, or treated yourself to a takeaway this week, you may have noticed something. Your drink should not have come in a polystyrene cup, and your meal should not have come with plastic cutlery.
This is because, on 1st October 2023 the sale of a range of single use plastic articles was banned. Announced back in January 2023, the ‘Single use plastics ban’ is the UK’s most wide reaching attempt to limit single use plastic, and came into force at the start of this month to relatively little fanfare. This latest ban follows the 2020 restrictions on plastic straws, cotton buds, and drinks stirrers, discussed by Joanne Pham here.
I have written previously about the environmental crisis caused by single use plastic waste, and about the technology which will reduce our reliance on disposable plastic (here and here). Despite this innovation, the OECD predicts that the global plastic waste generated annually will triple by 2060 (here).
As a result, any attempt to curb the UK’s reliance on single use plastic waste must be welcomed, right? Let us take a closer look at what this latest ban actually covers, and critically what it doesn’t.
Stepping Up To The Plate
The ban covers the sale of several specific single use plastic products, both online and over the counter. The ban covers products wholly or partially containing single use plastic. The classic example of the latter are those paperboard food containers which include a grease-proof polyethylene lining; incidentally, these are nearly impossible to recycle. The ban also applies to all plastic, even products made from biodegradable polymers which have long been used by the plastics industry as a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
The ban covers the supply of the following three groups of products:
- Plates, bowls and trays;
- Cutlery and balloon sticks; and
- Polystyrene food and drink containers.
Simple right? Well not quite; the ban includes some curious exemptions.
Dinner Reservations
Perhaps surprisingly, vendors can continue to provide plates, bowls and trays where they are used as packaging for food and are filled at the point of sale. So you can still pick up a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sushi box from the supermarket, or a slice of black forest gateau in a plastic-coated cardboard box from your local bakery. Disappointingly, it seems this aspect of the ban really only prevents vendors from selling empty single use plastic food containers to the public. One can’t imagine the average consumer was buying these empty containers anyway.
The polystyrene food and drink container ban is slightly more rigorous. Vendors can only provide food and drink in polystyrene containers where the food or drink requires “further preparation” before it is consumed. Presumably this is because a paper container may not be sufficiently robust to endure this “further preparation” which may include adding water, toasting, or microwaving.
Pleasingly, there are no exceptions to the plastic cutlery and balloon stick bans; you really shouldn’t see these in the UK ever again.
A Mixed Plastic Bag
There is a lot to like here. The blanket ban on plastic cutlery along with the near complete ban on polystyrene cuts out a large chunk of very common plastic waste from the hospitality industry. Your late night kebab will look positively gentrified in a cardboard box and with a wooden fork.
On the other hand, it feels like the country has already moved away from many of these offending products. If you buy a coffee, the cup will most likely be plastic-paperboard rather than expanded polystyrene, and when was the last time you saw a plastic balloon stick? McDonald’s has used cardboard balloon sticks since 2019. Once the exemptions are considered, the ban on plastic plates, bowls and trays doesn’t change a great deal either.
More broadly, many have criticized the UK’s whole approach to tackling single use plastic. Anna Diski, plastics campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “Legislating token bans on a few single-use plastic items every few years… [is] completely inadequate to the scale of the problem” (here). At this rate, it will take decades for the government to outlaw all sources of plastic waste in the UK – what is needed is a blanket ban on all single use plastics, with exemptions where suitable substitutes are not available.
Moreover, the choice of what to ban appears to be driven by what is easy rather than what is necessary. A 2022 study by Thomas Stanton et al. found that a whopping 29.7% of all litter in the UK was plastic (PET) drinks bottles; this was second only to aluminium drinks cans which accounted for 33.6% of our litter (here). If the government were guided by the data, plastic drinks bottles should have been first on the chopping block. The European Commission is also guilty of focussing its efforts in the wrong direction. The 2022 study compared the 10 single use plastic items covered by a 2019 EU directive on single use plastics to the 10 most abundant litter items found in the study. There was very little overlap. But rest assured, the EU’s list also includes plastic balloon sticks.
No Time To Waste
While progress to reduce our use of single use plastic in the UK has so far been sluggish, things might be about to change. As we speak, the first draft, called the “zero draft” of the much anticipated Global Plastics Treaty is being prepared. When this is signed in mid-2025, campaigners hope the Treaty will contain strict rules signatory nations must follow to reduce their use of plastic. Indeed, the most ambitious countries at the negotiations, one of which is the UK, want the Treaty to require all plastic pollution be eliminated by 2040. Make no mistake, while recycling will clearly play a role, such an ambitious goal is not compatible with our current global production of plastic. More bans will be needed, plastic production will need to be cut, and alternatives sought. The “zero draft” will be considered for the first time at a conference in Nairobi next month. I will report back on how ambitious it looks.
So while the UK has so far taken only baby steps to end our reliance on single use plastic, our hand may be forced in the near future. For the time being, we can celebrate the end of plastic cutlery, and we can toast the removal of polystyrene cups; but please, no balloon sticks.
This article is for general information only. Its content is not a statement of the law on any subject and does not constitute advice. Please contact Reddie & Grose LLP for advice before taking any action in reliance on it.
