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What are we doing about the plastics in our products?
We know the mismanagement of plastics is having a negative impact on our planet and we want to do what we can to change that.
Circularity in our packaging is a key ambition for us – we want resources to be used again and again. To us, this means that our packaging should ultimately be made from circular sources, such as renewable, plant-based or recycled materials. It should also be circular after use — meaning reusable, recyclable or compostable. We know we have a way to go, but our teams are working hard to reach this circular ambition.
What’s happening at Taylors?
Plastic is something which is getting a lot of focus worldwide, and here at Taylors. We’ve put a lot of work into evaluating where we use plastic and why. Where we don’t need to use plastic, we’re looking at the alternatives, being mindful of the impact different materials can have on the carbon footprint. And where we see plastic as the only option, we want to move away from oil-based to plant-based or recycled plastics.
Making these changes takes time though, and sometimes we’re waiting for the perfect packaging material to become available to that we can ensure our products reach you safely at the quality you’d expect.
The Plastics Pact
In 2018 we signed up to the UK Plastics Pact which means we have targets to eliminate unnecessary plastic, increase the use of recycled plastic, and make all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
We’re making good progress against these targets but there’s still lots of work for us to do. In 2018 there was around 780 tonnes of plastic in the packaging of products we sold. Over one third of this was in tea bag paper which is why moving from bags containing a polypropylene (PP) seal to ones containing a renewable, plant-based alternative — polylactic acid (PLA) — is number one on our priority list.
Our priorities
All of our products contain some level of plastic. Because one third of this sits with tea bags, we’ve addressed this area first and foremost. However, that doesn’t mean to say we’re not working on other areas of our portfolio as well. Our Research and Development team are working hard to make changes to five items of packaging that we believe need addressing as a priority.
1. Tea bags
2. Tea box overwrap
3. Coffee bag envelopes
4. Coffee film (Ground and Beans)
5. Loose leaf tea film
This will take time. We’re working towards the ambition of achieving the Plastics Pact targets by 2025, but with any luck we’ll have this done sooner and we’ll be keeping you updated along the way.
Plastic in Tea Bags
2019 was a year of testing and learning where our tea bags were concerned. From initial trials of our PLA tea bags we thought the seal was strong enough to roll out more widely. But we hit a major hurdle as the sealing on some bags wasn’t working properly and they fell apart in people’s mugs.
So, we rolled back, and we’ve been analysing and trialling ever since. We’ve tried refurbishing our machines, altering settings and putting the finished tea bags through multiple tests. We’ve also worked with Sheffield University to help us study the tea bag paper and we’ve used what we’ve learned to redevelop the tea bag paper itself. We’ve now gone through our first trials and from early 2020 we’ve been able to make about a fifth of our UK Yorkshire Tea bags with PLA.
Our plan was to roll out to more machines in 2020, but Covid-19 brought big changes for factories. Keeping our staff distanced means keeping production simple, and the switch to PLA is anything but simple.
We’re really sorry that it’s going to take longer than we hoped. The plan is to restart it in January 2021, so half are switched by the end of April, about four fifths are switched by the end of July and the last few machines make the switch by November – at which point all UK Yorkshire Tea, Yorkshire Gold, Yorkshire Tea Decaf and Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water will be made with PLA.
“Plastic Free”
PLA tea bags are sometimes called “plastic free”, but we’ve never used that label and WRAP, the people behind the UK Plastics Pact, also advise against it because plant-based plastics are still plastics.
Why change from one plastic to another? Well unlike traditional plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, plant-based plastics are made from renewable biological sources (like corn starch).
It’s also better when it’s thrown away, as long as it goes in the right bin. PLA tea bags are industrially compostable, which means they can go in food waste or garden waste bins for the council to compost.
As it’s so important to dispose of them like this to get the biggest environmental benefit, we want to be completely accurate when we talk about them. So we’re following WRAP’s advice and avoiding the phrase “plastic free”.
The end of Capsules
We knew that a tricky product to tackle would be our coffee capsules, and we’ve spent time looking at alternative materials to our plastic pods.
There are a few alternatives that are currently being used by other companies — things like compostable, aluminium and refillable capsules. After much deliberation we decided that aluminium was the best option for our product in terms of keeping quality and freshness, but we still had questions over the recycling of this material.
If aluminium is recycled, it is the best material to use from a carbon footprint perspective; but if it ends up in landfill or incinerated, it has the worst carbon footprint. Recycle rates on capsules made from aluminium are very low at around 25%, and we weren’t confident this was a good enough alternative if it wasn’t being disposed of correctly.
After reviewing all of our options and due to multiple factors, we’ve decided to completely withdraw from capsules. We loved this product, but we know it’s not the right way to move forward, so from January 2020 we will no longer be producing capsules.
We’ll keep you updated with news of where how we’re doing. In the meantime, if you want to know more about recycling our packaging, you can take a look at our how to recycle section for tips and pointers.