Roger Wright, waste strategy and packaging manager, Biffa, explains.
England is bracing itself for the next wave of waste legislation updates in 2025. This includes Simpler Recycling (requiring businesses to separate their recycling and food from general waste by standardising the materials collected through the separated waste streams), the Plastic Packaging Tax, and Extended Producer Responsibility. In turn, some on the go food companies will turn to paper packaging to mitigate cost implications and the perceived problems of plastic.
Takeaway businesses are already adopting ‘paperisation’ – the increased use of paper packaging over plastic – due to growing consumer pressure to move away from using plastic where possible.
However, this trend can raise more challenges for businesses than benefits. It sparks ‘wishcycling’ – when items that can’t be recycled end up in the wrong bin in the hope that they can, causing contamination. Packing messy foods in paper can make the material hard to recycle as they are so prone to contamination; food waste will transfer onto the material very easily. Plastic items can be washed, reused, or recycled more effectively to prevent contamination in the waste stream.
Pizza has been delivered in cardboard boxes since the 1960s. They still serve as a great example of the challenges faced by the modern takeaway industry when using cardboard or paper based packaging. Grease residue and leftover melted cheese form contaminants in pizza boxes, sticking to the cardboard, creating disposal challenges.
Consumers must take extra care when disposing of these boxes, ensuring only the uncontaminated parts of the boxes are thrown into the recycling bin. To avoid contamination, check for oil residue or cheese stuck to the cardboard. If oil, grease, or cheese has saturated areas of the box, rip the affected areas off before recycling the clean material. The contaminated card should go into general waste.
Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) legislation aims to hold businesses accountable for their packaging waste, and to cover the waste management costs for collection, sorting, recycling, or disposal by imposing modulated fees.
Modulated fees vary by material type, determined by the Recyclability Assessment Methodology, which will work as a traffic light system. Easy to recycle materials will be rated green and harder to recycle materials rated red. Paper or board packaging gets the green light and comes in at the cheapest, with fees starting at £185 per tonne for businesses. That is compared to the fee for plastic, which can be as high as £610 per tonne.
So, using paper and board packaging will potentially grant a business a green score for the materials' recyclability – driving further paperisation within the on the go food industry. A recent example is major supermarkets switching from plastic to fibre for fresh meat and fruit. Using paper materials will address concerns in the short term, but the increased risk of contamination can result in less packaging being recycled and therefore becoming less sustainable, not more. However, this can be avoided with education and further measures from businesses.
While the main concern for the industry is contamination, several other factors come into play with increased paperisation. The pizza box, for example, sees more virgin materials being used for its cardboard packaging because the inner layer of fibre touching the food cannot be comprised of recycled material for hygiene reasons.
High quality materials are needed for food packaging to comply with hygiene regulations. Retailers must therefore ensure that any paper alternatives perform just like plastic. Sometimes paper requires a higher specification, or more complexity, to meet these requirements.
More encouragingly though, some waste materials can be traded to earn businesses money, as other packaging manufacturers need those used materials to create new products. For example, used and uncontaminated paper or plastic packaging waste can be traded as a commodity to make new boxes or plastic packaging respectively.
Reusable packaging is on the rise, with one example being Germany based Pizzycle which creates reusable pizza containers for a large franchise. The development of this could be incentivise regular customers to return reusable boxes with a loyalty scheme or discounts on their next meal – similar to nationwide plans for a Deposit Return Scheme on single use drinks containers – thereby creating a circular system.
Reusable boxes – either made with washable materials that can be cleaned in-house, or from recyclable materials that can be used to make new packaging – would give customers a reason to ensure their waste heads to the proper disposal point, maximising the material’s lifespan. As with card packaging, ventilation points will need to be included to stop the pizza from sweating and making the bread base soft. However, while doable it is logistically cost prohibitive at present.
For now, a simple fix to prevent contamination is adding a protective layer to the packaging. The consumer can remove and bin the barrier material in general waste, leaving the remaining packaging to be recycled. For example, some hospitality organisations have seen success by placing greaseproof paper or card between the pizza and box.
While this reduces contamination, it does necessitate using another material, which then must enter general waste. That said, it is a far smaller proportion compared to possible lost recycling from stuck on food so, overall, a more carbon efficient option.
Paper packaging could potentially be extra effective if customers and workforces are educated on which bin to dispose waste into. The current recycling symbols can cause confusion or accidentally be overlooked. Manufacturers can clearly display these on packaging, which eco conscious consumers that are seeking transparency from brands should welcome, while hospitality businesses could print instructions inside a pizza box and/or display posters in their venue.
It is unlikely that contamination will be eradicated entirely, but such optimisations could help establish habits that make a big difference. While following best practice for recyclability might have short term cost and time ramifications, it makes for sustainable business – while protecting your bottom line – long term amid new regulations.
Contrastingly, paper is not always the optimal packaging solution. It is worth evaluating the goods you sell – if you are in the business of wet food, paper materials will be soaked and prove hard to clean. Good intentions to improve sustainability risk being compromised if the packaging ends up in general waste or contaminates recyclable loads.
With Simpler Recycling incoming, taking the time to separate food waste from packaging while ensuring it is clean, dry and loose, will help lower contamination at the point of disposal.
To beat widespread confusion, businesses must make it easier for their customers to recycle their takeaway packaging with as little contamination as possible.
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