Responding to the environment debate at Usdaw’s Annual delegate Meeting in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens, Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary said: “The future of the environment continues, rightly, to receive widespread public attention. There is a need for urgent action to save the environment. We need to reduce the impact we are having on our planet.
 
“This year school children as young as five took part in a school strike as part of a global campaign, to demand Governments take serious action against climate change before it is too late. It is essential that we act now to leave a sustainable and healthy legacy for our children and our grandchildren.
 
“It is estimated that currently twenty billion pounds worth of food is thrown away each year in the UK. The production of this food is contributing to twenty-five million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Much of the food going to waste is in perfect edible condition. This problem needs to be tackled.
 
“The supply chain and the food retailers need to have a serious look at whether we need all the food produced for the supermarket shelves. At the same time, any food leftover that is fit for consumption should be redistributed and put to good use in communities.
 
“As a society, we are throwing food away while people are going hungry. Families on benefits and on in-work benefits are going hungry while food is being thrown away. Over the last decade, food banks have appeared across the UK as families have struggled to buy the basic essentials. In their latest report, the Trussell Trust, who co-ordinate a network of food banks, have reported a 13% increase in emergency food supplies to people in crisis. This percentage represents real people, with real children, in real poverty.
 
“The Government, the food production supply chain, the supermarkets, consumers and the workers at all points of the food supply chain need to work together to reduce waste and ensure that any leftover food is redistributed to help those struggling to make ends meet.
 
“The impact of the disposable society on our planet is clear and cannot continue. Plastic waste dumped in the sea is having a devastating impact on marine life. Over the last decade big progress has been made with the public making efforts to recycle plastic, but confusion over what can and cannot be recycled is not helping to convince the public to make extra efforts to recycle.
 
“There is still much confusion to the types of plastics that can be recycled. Each local council appears to have different rules. The responsibility of recycling should not be entirely on the end user. After all, it is not the public who have control of what packaging is made from. Everything we buy seems to come in plastic containers or be wrapped in plastic. We need to reduce as well as recycle.
 
“Nor do we have the final say in what happens to it once we have placed it, in good faith, in the appropriate coloured recycling bin. In too many situations recycling means the UK selling plastic waste to countries predominantly in the far-east, resulting in our waste polluting the planet somewhere else. There needs to be more Government action to accelerate and improve the effectiveness of recycling.
 
“We need strategies to reduce the use of plastic. We need to move beyond a piecemeal approach and instead adopt meaningful, systematic policies on how we manage plastics, waste and recycling.  We need business to contribute more to delivering a sustainable economy and be held fully accountable for the environmental footprint which is causing irreparable damage to our planet.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest and the fastest growing trade union with over 420,000 members. Membership has increased by more than one-third over the last couple of decades. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
 
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