Kenco has new packaging for some of its coffee. As well as selling coffee in glass jars with a plastic lid, they also sell it in plastic bags. These bags of coffee are referred to as “Eco Refill”. Basically, Kenco is saying that these bags reduce the amount of packaging used per gram of coffee; that they’ve used the word “eco” suggests they think this is a good thing that will save the world. I think the use of the word “eco” is misleading and helps to misrepresent things, because it doesn’t seem to really mean anything. It’s just a word we have come to associate with seemingly positive actions for the environment.

The first thing that occurred to me when I saw the advert for the first time is that a composition of plastic and foil is not going to be better in any way than a glass jar. I haven’t seen the inside of one of these bags, but I am almost certain that it will be a plastic/foil composition, because foil is used in packaging where the manufacturer wants to keep the product “fresh”. Composites like this are difficult to recycle. A glass jar, however, is not difficult to recycle, and can even be reused.

On its website, Kenco has an “about” section, in which it asks and answers four questions about the bags. The first question they ask is “how can a bag be more eco-friendly than a glass jar?”, and they say it is because the bags are more efficient to produce and, compared to the glass jars, ”send 97% less waste to landfill because the lids are not widely recyclable”. It isn’t clear to me if they are saying that the bag uses (97%) less material than the lid uses.

They are arguing that the bag produces less waste than the lid does. Assuming that people tend not to recycle things that are difficult to recycle (that is, things that aren’t collected by the local council), it is definitely better to have the bag thrown away instead of having the lid thrown away.

However, if the lid is the problem, why not make a glass lid for the glass jar? That way, the whole thing is recyclable. I don’t understand why they would develop something less recyclable – a composite – in response to this problem. Had they started to sell their coffee in something like a Kilner jar, where both the lid and the jar itself are made of glass, they would have been able to claim that the coffee’s packaging doesn’t create waste at all because they are reusable; when we say “reduce, reuse, recycle”, “reuse” comes before “recycle” for a reason. Had they started to use Kilner jars rather than developing this non-solution, they would have had to start a scheme where the jars could be returned to them, because there is probably only a certain number of Kilner jars one can use, unless one makes preserves for a living. For returning the jars, the customer would receive some money back. Presumably, when jars are returned, Kenco would only need to wash and sterilise them before refilling with more coffee and sticking on a new label. I suspect that any such idea would have been dismissed because it is easier to just make a plastic bag with the colour green and the word “eco” on it than to set up a returns scheme.

“But surely a glass jar is more recyclable?”, Kenco asks on its website, before citing Defra on the fact that 40% of glass isn’t being recycled (in 2009). Kenco appears to have good intentions when it says that it’d like it if everybody recycled their glass jars, but it recognises that not everybody does, therefore the new packaging is a way for everybody to reduce their waste. I still think that finding a way to reduce the material wasted when the lid is thrown away (by making a glass lid) would have been a better option, and that this new packaging is an insufficient half measure that is probably only for the purposes of greenwashing the company rather than for actually making a positive difference in the world.

Kenco says that it has partnered with a company to recycle these new bags. It says the bags “can be turned into fun new items like bags or pencil cases, or even umbrellas”. The recycling of these bags depends upon customers sending them to the recycling company. Two pence per bag is donated to “your choice of charity”. I really can’t think of a reason why this is genuinely better than developing a glass product that is 100% reusable and recyclable (with a returns scheme to go with it), when the two options both involve trying to make a better product and setting up a way of reusing/recycling that product.

I think that Kenco might have decided on this new packaging because it means the company is seen to be doing something positive, even if it proves to be not as positive as it could be. And, by handing over the recycling of its packaging to another company, Kenco is absolving itself of its packaging’s life cycle. This is akin to throwing something away and not realising there is no “away”; by producing this flawed packaging, Kenco thinks it is improving its profile by having an “eco-friendly” product, but apparently isn’t too bothered about what happens to the packaging afterwards (who really wants to buy a bag or an umbrella that has Kenco’s logo all over it, or maybe that is the whole point).

Overall, I think this new packaging is just using the potential naivety of some people who are eager to do their bit to supposedly save the planet, by using the word “eco”, talking about helping people to reduce their waste, and having a charity element in the recycling process. If we, as consumers, can be more questioning and understand that there is more to sustainability than creating unrecyclable products as a solution to a small problem with a good product we will see that Kenco is using greenwash.

If it is not greenwash, Kenco, employ an institution to carry out research on all aspects of  the sustainability of this new packaging and other alternatives. It is no use to focus only on reducing the energy needed to produce the packaging if the packaging can only serve its purpose once before being turned into an umbrella. It must be better to spend as much energy as necessary to produce packaging that can be reused for its original purpose indefinitely.

Ideally, all produce would be sold loose, with no packaging at all (and the customer takes their own packaging to be refilled). It is clear, though, that loose branded coffee would be difficult to sell, so the best solution I can come up with for Kenco to reduce packaging waste is this: Kenco should develop a glass jar with a glass lid, then work out the cost of the coffee and the cost of the glass packaging. They could sell jars of coffee with two different prices – one price includes the cost of the packaging, and the other price is just for the coffee. When somebody wants to buy a jar of Kenco coffee, they take their empty jar with them and buy the jar of coffee that doesn’t include packaging in the price, handing over their empty jar when they pay. If a person doesn’t have an empty jar to return, they should buy the jar of coffee that includes the packaging in the price.