(GUF) DIGITAL WASTE TRACKING

If we mix UK reality with lessons from France’s EPR roll-outs and South Korea’s Allbaro system, the idea of rolling out Digital Waste Tracking over the next couple of years in the UK is laughable. Infact, not even this decade - the honesty being that cradle to grave coverage is a 2030s project.

With no receiving data until late 2025, any IT project of this size will then need at least 12-18 months of live bedding-in before phase 2 (carriers/brokers) which currently has no date and is subject to funding and review in September 2025. DEFRA has only promised 'a decision' in 2025, not a start date.

The earliest realistic law-making window is around 2027, which means mandatory use couldn’t begin before late 2028 or 2029 and that’s if everything goes flawlessly. Phase 3 (producers and full cradle-to-grave coverage) would still need new secondary legislation and a national behaviour-change campaign, with no formal commitment yet in place.

There are a couple of International benchmarks - France (EPR + TrackDéchets) - pilot work started 2018; hazardous waste tracking went live 2021; full sector coverage is still expanding in 2024–25. It took roughly 6 - 7 years from pilot to broad mandatory coverage.

South Korea (Allbaro) - announced mid-1990s; national hazardous & municipal tracking fully embedded by early 2000s, it took approximately 10 years from concept to near-total cradle-to-grave reporting. Both countries had stronger centralised governance and more consistent funding than the UK typically musters.

The UK has an appalling track record when it comes to implementation of waste and sustainability legislation. Extended Producer Responsibility (packaging) slipped from 2023 → 2025+ (and still not fully operational). The Deposit Return Scheme has bounced through four separate target years. Digital Waste Tracking itself has already moved from 'April 2025' to 'April 2026 service / Oct 2026 mandate'.

A two year delay is practically built into every big environmental IT policy. Plausible UK rollout pathway (realistic, not optimistic).

If everything ran like a German train, maybe 2029. If it runs like a typical UK waste policy (think Simpler Recycling or DRS) expect early 2030s for true  'everyone in the chain' coverage. That’s not pessimism, just pattern recognition - big IT + fragmented industry + shifting governments = slow, stop-start progress. 

So the smart money is on Phase 1 bedding-in through the late 2020s and full cradle-to-grave tracking no earlier than the next Parliament after 2030. More like this (electronic tagging) - link - more like this (Allbaro) - link 

(GUF) EU LEGISLATION

EU environmental law is built like a cathedral; many architects, countless masons, trades and an army of inspectors.

Each new directive draws on 27 member states’ ministries, civil-service teams, scientific committees, the European Environment Agency, Parliament committees, industry bodies, NGOs and public consultations in every language. The result is legislation that’s broad, stress-tested, and difficult to pick apart because it’s been hammered into shape by thousands of contributors.

By contrast, the UK process is currently more like a well-meaning garden shed project: a handful of Whitehall departments and Westminster committees, fewer expert layers and far smaller stakeholder input. It can (in theory) move quicker but the trade off is reach and resilience; policies risk being narrower, easier to lobby, less future-proof or repeatedly kicked down the road.

EU waste, reuse, and circular-economy measures typically arrive more robust, all-encompassing and precisely defined than their UK counterparts. When more minds build the framework, the structure stands stronger and to dismiss that body of work on grounds of geography alone isn’t sovereignty, it’s self-sabotage.

The environment doesn’t stop at Dover and neither should our policy.
Adopting EU waste and circular economy legislation isn’t about waving a blue flag; it’s about cost, access and timing. EU legislation 1 - link - EU legislation 2 - link - more like this - link

(GUF) LITTLE BOTTLES

Well done to South Australia for banning those little plastic soy fish that swim straight from sushi trays into landfill but the EU is going even further.

Across the EU, hotels supply approximately 10 billion single-use hotel mini-toiletries (those 30 ml shampoo and body-wash bottles) annually; in addition, food service supplies around 40 billion single-use condiment sachets (ketchup, mayo, sauce, etc) a year, most unrecyclable multi-layer films and the EU Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) is finally coming for the industry’s most convenient inconvenience.

Article 22 & Annex V targets single-use packaging for consumables used in the hospitality and food service sectors that can be reasonably replaced by reusable or refillable systems. Reuse systems (wall dispensers, pump bottles, refill stations) are documented to reduce waste by up to 90% per guest. It’s a clear signal that design-for-reuse is no longer optional.

With the ban taking effect gradually from 2030 (final Parliament text currently points to a 2030 full prohibition with some earlier targets for reuse roll-out), exemptions exist only if no hygiene-safe refill or reusable system exists.

The ban covers hotels, cruise lines, airlines, hostels, fast food, takeaways, event caterers, all brand owners & importers supplying the EU market (even UK exporters). Even if the UK diverges post-Brexit, exporters to the EU will need PPWR-compliant refill formats.

A big pat on the back for the EU is due (could be sooner) and a big wake up call to the UK is needed - there is no UK law exactly like the PPWR’s ban on mini toiletries & sachets ready (as far as I'm aware). PPWR - link - more like this - link

(GUF) BAEKELAND'S FOLLY

Outside of PET bottles and the odd bit of HDPE, recycling is smoke, mirrors and a big fat lucrative oil pipeline. Geneva proved just how divided things are; the EU, several African states and a Latin American coalition pushed for binding caps on virgin polymer whilst the US, China and petro-states cling to the stupid fantasy that recycling alone will save us.

When your flagship recyclers across the globe are openly admitting 'this isn’t viable at scale', you’d expect urgency to swing towards cutting output; instead, negotiators are being fed an escape hatch: 'if mechanical doesn’t work, maybe chemical recycling will save the day' - (spoiler alert) that's not a plan, that’s a stalling tactic.

Every tonne that isn’t recycled is a guaranteed sale of virgin resin and as long as oil stays cheap, petrochemical majors are laughing. They wrap it up in noble PR terms 'essential plastics' for health, food security, medicine etc while their social media pimps pump out sermons on the life-saving wonders of single-use. The hard truth is that 70–80% of plastics are functionally unrecyclable and when the treaty finally accepts that, maybe urgency could finally shift toward upstream measures; caps on virgin polymer, bans on design-for-waste formats and phase-outs of the worst offenders because if it dodges again, expect another decade of voluntary pledges 🥱 glossy PowerPoints and deeper fossil lock-in.

The oil industry hasn’t 'won' yet, but they’re playing the long game and every year of delay is another victory. The treaty could still matter hugely but only when the negotiators admit that they're treating lung cancer with cough syrup.

Designing and manufacturing a material with no end-of-life solution isn’t innovation, it’s selfish, cynical, and irresponsible. If companies are going to profit from plastics, they need to do one of two things - restrict production to polymers with a proven recycling route or pay directly for their destruction through incineration not by hiding behind some wreck of a convoluted EPR scheme.

Kicking the can down the road has kept producers comfortable since Leo Baekeland came up with Bakelite in 1907 but it’s buried the real cost in everyone else’s lap. If “circular economy” is to mean anything, it has to start with stopping the flow of materials that never had a chance of being circular in the first place. More like this (plastics) - link - they knew it was lies - link