Real plastic changes

There’s a clear momentum in many countries for companies to move away from single use or hard to recycle plastics. Whether that’s because of consumer demand, government regulation, or cost is irrelevant: They’re doing the right thing and that should be acknowledged—even as we urge them to keep moving toward sustainability.

Last week, the obviousness of change was brought home to me through two supermarket chains. Last Friday evening, hours before New Zealand’s new plastic bans took effect, I stopped in New World on my way home from a family get-together. I was curious and looked: Their produce section already had paper bags for customers to use, and there were no rolls of plastic bags that I could see. They may have made the switch ages ago, for all I know, because I wouldn’t have noticed: I’ve had reusable mesh bags for produce for several years. Regardless, it was good to see they were ready ahead of the deadline.

A few days later, I was placing a delivery order with Countdown (part of New Zealand’s other supermarket chain), and I saw the ad at the top of this post, one of several that cycled through their main web page. In January of last year, I blogged about how only some plastics were easily recyclable, and coloured drink bottles weren’t among them. I was glad to see that the Coca-Cola company was taking responsible action.

Throughout the slow walk away from single-use and hard to recycle plastics, the degree of acceptance has varied, particularly among affected businesses. Both supermarket chains started working on produce bag replacements by the time plastic shopping bags were banned, and spokespeople for both companies talked about problems. There’s nothing quite like a looming deadline to spur action, and whether or not that was an immediate motivator for the supermarket chains or not doesn't really matter because it imposed a deadline—and both companies got there.

The bottle change is a bit more interesting to me, and, of course, I had to learn more. It turns out that the decision was announced on May 1 of this year. According to the company’s website:

Coca-Cola in New Zealand has today announced that after nearly 60 years Sprite’s iconic green plastic bottles will switch to clear plastic, making them easier to recycle into new bottles.

While green PET plastic is recyclable, it’s usually converted into single-use items like clothing and carpet that cannot be recycled again.

The change is being made globally, because it “reflects the company’s commitment to prioritise sustainability and drive packaging circularity”. I actually think this is true: It’s good business for companies to make an effort toward sustainability, but if they’d persisted with difficult-to-recycle green bottles, sooner or later there would’ve been consumer backlash—just another reason the move made good business sense. Still, it’s no small thing considering that the product has been in green bottles since it was introduced in the 1960s (the no sugar version has been in clear plastic bottles for a very long time).

These two things—making an early change to paper rather than single use plastics, and changing a plastic bottle colour to one that can be recycled multiple times—are each obvious moves for the companies to make. The first was needed because a rule change made it necessary, and the second because consumer demand could ultimately drive sales down without the change. However, there are also incidents of companies that resist, such as, continuing to use banned plastics, and those are the sorts of things that get reported by the new smedia. I think we should acknowledge that, regardless of motivation, sometimes companies just get on with what needs to be done.

And yet, there’s still so much more to be done.

Almost two years ago, I wrote ”The problem is more than plastic”, a blog post in which I talked about some of the problems remaining. Nothing much has been done about the problem with things made from mixed plastics or that otherwise can’t be recycled. Personally, I’d like to see government come up with a plan to ban such plastics, too, but that’ll take alternatives and support from companies (like food and food product manufacturers) to make that happen.

In the meantime, I’d like to see a sustained effort, with significant government support, to educate people on sustainable alternatives to using plastics of any kind. At the same time, we all need to take responsibility for living more sustainably.

I’m trying to practice what I preach. Just as I researched and found reusable mesh bags for produce long before the single-use plastic versions were banned, so, too, I’ve been researching and trialling alternatives that, at the very least, reduce the amount of plastics I use—not merely hard-to recycle plastic, but all plastics. I’ll soon start blogging about my efforts in the hope that they may be useful to others.

On the meantime, though, things in New Zealand, at least, are moving in the right direction. We’re far from solving all the problems associated with the use of plastics, and there are some big and difficult challenges in the way, but just a little more determination can go much farther toward getting us there.

Important Note: The names of brands/products/companies listed in this post are used merely for purposes of description and clarity. No company or entity provided any support or payment of any kind for this blog post. The opinions I expressed are my own genuinely held opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturers, retailers, or any known human being, alive or dead, real or corporate. Just so we’re clear.