Why Doesn’t WRAP have a Paper / Board Reduction Pact?

Posted on 24 Mar 2025

The White Company Single Candle Pack

The White Company Environmental Policy states that its priorities include Decarbonizing the supply chain, Minimizing waste, Safeguarding nature and Transitioning our products and packaging towards a more circular economy. However, if they analyzed the packaging they have used to wrap just one small candle, they would find;

• The cardboard box outer weighs some 20 times the inner box used to pack the candle!

• The outer box is eight times the volume of that required!

• 1.4 meters of double thickness paper is used!

• The weight of this paper exceeds the weight of the box used to pack the candle!

Realistically, the candle could have been packed in a slightly bigger box protected by shrink film and bubble wrap. The bubble wrap would be 40% air, 100% reusable and 100% recyclable. Using shrink film and bubble wrap would have reduced the weight of the paper packaging and cardboard used by circa 90%. Meanwhile, the packaging actually used has a carbon footprint many times that of the alternative shrink / bubble wrap pack and produces 90% more waste.

This paper / board combination chosen also uses far more of the Earth’s natural resources (trees, water, land).

All of these are contrary to The White Company’s stated Environmental Policies. So, what is happening here?

The UK Plastics Pact

In October 2017, the BBC produced Blue Planet 2. This included some totally emotive sequences, highlighting the problems created by those countries deliberately dumping their waste in the oceans. The countries were never mentioned (the polluters), and only the plastic waste (the pollution) was shown (the other waste sinks). Out of this one programme, the worldwide anti-plastic movement was born and here in the UK in 2018, the WRAP Plastic Pact was created.

For those who consider that the WRAP approach to the Pact was objective and proportional. I quote the words of Marcus Gover, WRAP CEO, (In his 2021Report) when he refers to the ‘Devastation caused by Plastic Pollution’. What Devastation? This devastation is not identified but it is left to the imagination of the reader!

This is particularly relevant at a time when the whole packaging industry is moving towards Science-Based solutions, however, no evidence was given then or since into where or when this devastation is occurring. Similarly, no comparison is made with the real devastation (and deaths) caused every year by forest fires in monoculture forests planted for the production of paper and board, or indeed the deforestation which is left behind when the soil used for these monoculture forests is exhausted.

The 2024 Plastic Pact Report expresses the pride within WRAP that they have removed 33 billion ‘problematic plastic items since 2018, saving 360,000 tonnes of plastic. But, at what cost?

As the example from The White Company shows, by avoiding plastic shrink film and bubble wrap, some 90% more waste has been produced and many extra tonnes of CO2 generated. (How much is difficult to calculate). These figures ignore the thousands of trees destroyed every day, along with the natural resources depleted, to produce packaging which is totally unnecessary.

So, how much additional waste has the Plastic Pact created to remove the 360,000 tonnes of plastic? At least 1 million tonnes would seem a reasonable guestimate as paper / board is 4-10 times heavier than plastic.

So, what should WRAP be promoting?

Recycling soft plastics is difficult. The different polymers are nearly impossible to separate. However, rigids are relatively easy, be they PET or HDPE. In addition, we can now reproduce virtually every type of flexible packaging in single polymer, recyclable films. Thus, there are several relatively easy steps WRAP could be recommending we take immediately.

1) Introducing a Deposit Return Scheme for plastic rigids. Both Brazil and Scandinavia claim over 95% recovery of plastic bottles for recycling using DRS.

2) Promote a two-part labelling and separation scheme for collecting soft plastics, 1. Single recyclable polymers. 2. the rest.

3) Ban PERNs and ALL waste exports over say a 3-year period. Currently circa 600,000 tonnes of plastic and 4 million tonnes of paper are exported every year. These are included as UK recycled. But there are no checks, so no one knows the true recycling rate.

4) Give tax breaks for Capex into UK recycling infrastructure. Waste is an industry of the future; we should support it in the UK, not overseas.

5) Campaign against the 300 different recycling systems used by UK local authorities.

Conclusions

• The creation by WRAP of the Plastic Pact is distorting packaging material selection.

• The Plastic Pact is encouraging plastic replacement and substitution into predominantly paper / board. All too often, plastic substitution is not science-based with no comparable LCA’s.

• The consequence of this substitution is more waste, not less, more greenhouse gas emissions and more depletion of the Earth’s natural resources.

• The WRAP description of ‘Problematic and Unnecessary’ plastic is flawed. It is neither evidence or science-based and is too often focused on just plastic reduction.

• The WRAP elimination list for plastics is seriously flawed. It includes plastic wrapping for multi packs. The replacement cardboard compilation packs now used result in tens of thousands of tonnes of unnecessary cardboard in the UK alone. Similarly, plastic sachet portion packs produce the lowest waste and have the lowest carbon footprint.

• Since the Plastic Pact was introduced, UK Paper / Board packaging usage increased by 1.5% per year. That’s circa ½ million tonne @ 75,000 tonnes p/a (reference Consegic Business Intelligence Report Dec 2024). Meanwhile, UK plastic packaging fell by 6% or 120,000 tonne in 2024 alone (UK. EA).

In Summary

Reducing food and packaging waste was WRAP’s original raison d’etre. Plastics are the ideal packaging material to achieve both. Research proves they also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By slavishly encouraging the industry to follow the government’s populist anti-plastic policies, WRAP contradict the reason for their very existence.

Thus, the question, ‘Why doesn’t WRAP have Paper / Board Reduction Pact?’ is valid.

As ever, I welcome your views on any of the items raised and welcome you to join me on LinkedIn for more regular updates.

Twigg Times