Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
280-287)
MR JULIAN
WALKER-PALIN,
MS GEMMA
LACEY, MR
ARTHUR SAYER
AND MR
RICHARD WHITEFIELD
19 NOVEMBER 2008
Q280 David Taylor: Often any commercial
waste which could be recycled, if in a white van with a trailer
on the back, many community sites will turn those away because
it is commercial waste. Ought there to be a means or a system
of licensing to allow SMEs to dispose of waste in that way?
Mr Whitefield: Yes, most definitely.
We have got several smaller streams, glass is probably one, plastic
is another, where it is not economically viable for us to do it
anyway. We do not get any feedback from it. There is a commercial
recycling place across the road in our retailers next door, which
you could use, and I daresay some of our employees do use, but
it becomes inconvenient and you then start having certain products
which we have, certain waste streams, ending up going as hazardous
because it is the easiest way for us to get rid of it, because
there is no specific way of dealing with that particular waste.
Yes, I think there is definitely a requirement for that for the
smaller companies. We have got sufficient streams where it does
not create a problem for us, but I can imagine companies half
our size having real difficulties with it.
Q281 Mr Williams: When packaging
is reduced there comes a point where you need a certain minimum
amount of packaging in order to protect the product either through
transport or at point of sale, or indeed when the consumer is
taking it home. At that stage, is it better then to put more emphasis
on making the packaging more easily recyclable rather than trying
to drive down bit by bit the amount of packaging?
Mr Walker-Palin: I think from
our perspective, yes. I look at the example of Wal-Mart which
has just opened a business in India, where they do not have the
infrastructure of packaging that we have in the UK, and over 50%
of products actually get spoilt from being produced to reaching
the consumer because they are not protected during the distribution
chain. I always think that is good to bear in mind, the process
and the protection that packaging actually gives these products.
Undoubtedly what we are trying to do is to collect—going
to mixed plastics again—these kinds of materials back to
get them re-processed in the UK, so that we can then put them
back into our packaging. Certainly our strategy is to make them
as recyclable as possible. It is difficult to do so at the moment
because you cannot always get the materials you want, and also
there is some technology which needs to be overcome because certain
types of recycled materials, if they are too high a percentage,
cannot be put in contact with foodstuffs. So there is some R&D
which needs to be done as well. But to us it feels like increased
recyclable content is definitely the right way to go.
Ms Lacey: I would agree with Julian's
point on that. I think it is looking at how you can eliminate
packaging and after that it is about looking at where you can
use alternative materials, introducing recyclables, but I think
it is about choosing the option which is right for that piece
of particular packaging and obviously in terms of improving recyclability,
because that is what our customers want to do at the end of its
life.
Q282 Mr Williams: ASDA has called
for a more consistent nationwide approach to recycling, but given
the varied circumstances in which customers live, in a flat or
in very remote areas, is that going to be possible in different
local authority areas?
Mr Walker-Palin: What has been
really interesting is that in our chairing of the Packaging Recycling
Action Group this is one of the barriers that have been put up
that we are trying to overcome. The Group, which also has the
Local Government Association, Defra, various trade associations,
INCPEN, waste processors, re-processors, local authorities themselves
sitting on it, has a good group of people who can help us to answer
this question. We started off, looking back maybe naively, around
"Let's get a uniformity of the collection systems for these
materials." When Alice Roberts from the Local Government
Association did a survey during the summer she asked exactly that
question and the results which came back from the local authorities
was, "We do support the idea in principle of collecting certain
material types. However, we definitely don't support exactly the
same system of collections across the UK." So the work of
the PRAG is looking at, "Let's shift our emphasis in terms
of the material types. It doesn't matter so much how they're collected,
but if you can get some uniformity on that it makes the communications
of that better." One thing which was discounted by local
authorities was having some of the European schemes where you
have "bring bank" facilities on people's streets and
no collections and people do the recycling themselves. It was
interesting because that was not seen as the way to go for the
UK, but general acceptance on, "Yes, let's try and agree
which material streams we should collect and then leave us to
work out the best way of collecting it, depending on the demographics
of our areas."
Q283 Mr Williams: Has the industry
got a role in helping to communicate with the customers about
which packaging is more recyclable or in just helping to get the
information out there, because some people really do need that
help in order to make the whole process work, and how would the
industry set about promoting that?
Mr Walker-Palin: Yes. What we
all did, probably at the beginning of this year, was we looked
at exactly that issue and said, "Customers don't understand
type 1, type 2, type 3, type 4, it's too complicated, but they
do understand that recycling generally is a good thing to do,
so how can we help them to move towards a recycling route but
make it simpler?" That is when we decided as a whole retail
sector, "Let's put some more clearer logos, and standardised
logos for everybody on our packaging which says, for example,
`Sleeve cardboard, tray plastic, sleeve film,' for example, and
then put a coloured symbol above that which says, `Across the
UK that is widely recycled. Check locally,' or, `Not recycled,'
and then link them to a website where they can go and put their
own postcode in." We think that has helped a lot in moving
consumers forwards. The next step, I believe, is getting more
uniformity of the material types so that we can up the widely
recycled range and then it will make it far simpler for consumers
to then recycle those materials. They do want to do so. We do
get a lot of post saying, "We want to recycle more of these
materials."
Q284 Mr Williams: A constituent suggested
to me that rather than having a little number on the different
types of plastic we should have a colour coding which would make
it easier for people to find themselves involved in this and in
trying to make a real contribution.
Ms Lacey: I think this will really
help because retailers will be using standardised labelling, so
in terms of looking at our packaging, and ASDA packaging, consumers
are going to see the same set of symbols, which will just make
it much simpler. As you say, there is kind of colour coding and
a greater visibility in terms of what the material is, and also
what action consumers should actually be taking with that material.
I think it will help us then to collectively communicate what
we are trying to do about tackling some of those materials which
consumers are not currently able to recycle.
Q285 Chairman: Can we conclude our
session at the moment with some questions about carrier bags,
which has become the sort of lightning conductor of good practice
as far as retailers and waste are concerned? ASDA has got an enviable
record of 30% reduction, I am advised, in terms of the number
of carriers bags it has handed out, but Mr Bond again strikes
an interesting note in which he is not exactly supportive of the
measure which is contained in the Climate Change Bill, which effectively
precursors the possibility of a carrier bag tax. I hope that is
a fair summary of where you are and the evidence which John Lewis
kindly supplied to the Committee indicated that you had had a
25% reduction in the number of bags carried out. I think it would
be quite interesting to hear your respective experiences about
how you have achieved that and what your customers' reactions
have been to longer life, sometimes material based, carrying bags
as opposed to the plastic bag. Mr Walker-Palin, do you want to
start?
Mr Walker-Palin: I guess probably
in terms of our current strategy around reducing carrier bag usage
started around this time last year, where we said, "Let's
take some trial stores over Christmas, the busiest time of the
year for us, and let's look at ways of changing customer behaviours
to using carrier bags."
Q286 Chairman: Can I just ask you
what motivated you to do it?
Mr Walker-Palin: Initially we
are working towards a voluntary agreement, again with WRAP, around
a 25% reduction in the environmental impact of the carrier bags
which we were giving out. I think it is fair to say subsequently
we have moved a lot further than that, but this time last year
that is what we were aiming towards. There is a common misnomer
around carrier bags that we want to give them out. Well, actually
we do not, because again it is a cost to our businesses. So it
is good business practice to not give them out also, but we need
to take customers with us in the right way, which will make a
permanent behavioural change in the use of carrier bags. So last
year we took a very bold step over Christmas in six stores to
remove carrier bags from our checkouts, place them out of view
and put them under the control of the cashier. Then the cashier
was encouraged to have a conversation with the customer, to say,
"Have you brought your own bags with you today? If not, do
you want to purchase one of these sustainable bag ranges?"—and
all of our sustainable bags are sold at cost, we make zero profit
from them. If the answer then was, "No, I don't. I want a
carrier bag," they would them give them the number of carrier
bags appropriate to the shop they have done that day. We did this
last Christmas across different demographic stores to try and
understand are there harder parts of the country to reach on this
and easier parts? What was really surprising to me was the lower
demographic stores got behind it much more than the higher demographic
stores and I think probably we extrapolated from that—we
did some customer research—that it allowed people who did
not have a huge amount of spare disposable income to make the
right choice around the planet and be seen to be doing their bit.
So it was almost an entry point, again in a similar way to recycling,
I think, to greener behaviours. We then looked at what other barriers
are there in existence and we decided our sustainable bag range
was not very trendy. People probably did not really want to be
seen with it walking down the street. So at the beginning of this
year we completely revamped it. I am told it is a really trendy
range now, according to the people who designed it. I think it
is certainly much better. We moved the sustainable bags to the
front of our stores, so you could buy them when you were standing
at the checkouts, and then in June this year, to coincide with
National Recycling Week, we rolled out what we trialled at Christmas
nationwide. So we took carrier bags off our checkouts, placed
them out of view. We had points of sale for a month around our
stores and the strap line we used for customers was, "Saving
the planet one bag at a time." The reason we said that was
that it might only be one bag to you, but if 70 million customers
all used one bag less, actually that really starts to add up then
into making a real difference. We did a lot of messaging in our
customer magazine, which is the most widely read free magazine
in the country. We did messages on ASDA FM, which you can get
on the Internet and in our stores. We did lots of communications
in different ways to our customers, and in particular to our store
managers to get them involved, and our front end managers who
are responsible for the standards at the front end. We have now
reached a 30% reduction and we are about to go again between now
and Christmas to put some more messages up at the front of our
checkouts, similar to what the Government has done on "Act
on CO2" to make the link between prices, cost and the behaviour
and activity you want to drive. We promised that any savings we
make from carrier bags will go back into lowering prices for our
customers. So we are saying to them, "If you come forward
on this and make this permanent behavioural change, you will see
a benefit and prices we will lower within our stores." We
think that will be very effective. We are aiming now towards a
50% reduction by next Easter. We are going to roll out more permanent
hanging boards at the point of sale at the front of our stores.
We are introducing a new bag into our range. Again, they are all
sold at cost. What we are seeing is that so far customers use
about six bags per shop and most customers have got three, four
maybe, sustainable bags. So they are starting to make that switch.
But what we are seeing is more behavioural change. It is not a
one-off, they are actually remembering to do it. There are certain
areas where they are still forgetting, one of which is when they
get out of the car and they leave it in the boot of the car and
get inside the store and think, "Oh, forget it. I can't be
bothered to go back for them." So we are going to put some
big banners in our car parks saying, "Are your bags in the
boot? Don't forget to bring them with you." So some simple
things which we really think are going to help drive this forward.
By making that kind of approach, the behavioural change rather
than a punitive levy on carrier bags, we believe will make a permanent
change with customers as opposed to that we have seen in the Republic
of Ireland, where the levies had to be increased and it could
be argued, "You haven't made that behavioural change."
It has not really got into customers' minds to change fundamentally
how they shop.
Q287 Chairman: Right. John Lewis?
Ms Lacey: I think in terms of
our philosophy it is similar in terms of saying that actually
it is about making sure that we drive long-term and sustained
change in consumer behaviour on this issue. We introduced a "Bag
for Life" back in 1999, so it has been part of our culture
in terms of promoting the messages of reuse and, like ASDA, we
have promoted this "Bag for Life". We have removed carriers
from our checkouts.[1]
We have invested a huge amount of time and effort, mainly at the
request of our partners in terms of partner training and what
we are trying to do in this whole area, and again communicating
and having much more of an active dialogue with our consumers
on this particular issue. Again, looking at our reusable bags
and those offers and making them more attractive to consumers,
sitting alongside the "Bag for Life".
Q288 Chairman: Just to pick up on the
point Mr Walker-Palin made, because if we think particularly of
the Waitrose part of your business by and large I guess the people
who shop in Waitrose perhaps do not fall into the category of
the slightly more hard-pushed ones in Mr Walker-Palin's example.
But have you found, amongst your customers across the range of
stores, any differences in the positive uptake of longer life
bags?
Ms Lacey: We have. Last year we
actually saw an increase of 63% in our sales of our "Bag
for Life" which equates to around four million "Bags
for Life", so I think we have seen a shift in behaviour.
I think you are right in saying we do have a kind of more informed
customer base and they are very vocal on this particular issue
and very supportive of the actions we have taken in store to raise
awareness of the issue and make it easier for them to reuse their
bags.
Chairman: Okay. For those unfamiliar
with the procedures of the House of Commons, the division bell
has now sounded and so we will have to disappear. As we have just
about come to the end of our questions, can I take the opportunity
of thanking all of our witnesses for a very positive and quality
input to our inquiry. Can I thank you for your written evidence.
There may be the odd question which we might want to just refer
back to you in writing, but thank you very much for coming this
afternoon and helping us. Thank you.
The Committee suspended from 4.14 pm to
4.33 pm for a division in the House.
1 Clarification by witness: Mainline checkouts are
visibly clear of carrier bags. Back
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