British shoppers have rated food items as the best performer when it comes to how effectively they are tackling the amount and recyclability of packaging used in the UK, shows a recent report.
According to new research by Aquapak, which specialises in developing high performance, environmentally safe materials to reduce plastic pollution and improve recycling, food tops as the best performer ahead of household products in second place.
Clothing ranks third, but only among 13 per cent of those surveyed, with cosmetics and fashion accessories scoring very poorly for planet friendly packaging performance.
The research also shows that consumers believe that it should be product manufacturers and producers that take the greatest responsibility for improving packaging recycling rates (56 per cent), followed by local authorities (53 per cent) and retailers (49 per cent).
With EPR legislation now in force there may be increased costs to pay for packaging for many UK companies, so choosing the right material now could help reduce costs later and remove the risk of ongoing environmental damage if packaging is not correctly disposed of.
Mark Lapping, Chief Executive Officer of Aquapak, comments, “Our research shows that certain product sectors are perceived to be doing better than others when it comes to tackling packaging waste.
"We recognise the businesses have a huge task on their hands when it comes to a range of sustainability issues, whether it is carbon, water or biodiversity, with plastic packaging just one small piece of the jigsaw.
“This focus is compounded by the new EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) that will take effect for large and listed companies shortly and means that they must share information on how they monitor a wide range of ESG issues and their impact on the planet.
"The good news is that there is a commercially proven solution in the form of Hydropol that will make their plastic packaging problems literally disappear.
“If all brands switched just garment bags to Hydropol it is estimated that around 25 million tonnes of conventional, hard-to-recycle packaging could be prevented from entering the environment each year.”
