Packaging waste tops list of UK environmental concerns

A new survey, by communications company WPP, suggests packaging waste is now the biggest environmental concern in the UK

According to the survey, a quarter of UK adults now believe that the huge amounts of waste packaging we produce and fail to recycle is extremely worrying, compared with just 15 per cent who are worried to the same degree about the impact of greenhouse gases. This shift in public opinion has increased pressure on big companies and the Government to address the issues of excessive packaging and increasing the recycling of plastic waste.

Government and retailers have all moved to address the growing public concern with the government announcing its priorities were to reduce excessive packaging and increase the recyclable content of essential packaging. Supermarkets are also responding to growing public concern with Tesco, M&S and Sainsbury's reducing the amount of packaging they use.

Britain is also poised to make a dramatic leap forward in its recycling efforts with the opening of the nation's first "closed loop" recycling plant. The £13m facility in Dagenham, east London, will turn millions of used drinks bottles and sandwich wrappers made out of PET (polyethylene teraphthalate) back into "clean" wrapping for food packaging products like drinks bottles.

Source:  The Independent