When Britain’s Cabinet ministers showed up for a meeting at Downing Street they were each presented with a gift from Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary: a reusable coffee cup.
“It’s very easy for people to be cynical of it,” admits David McLagan, founder of Ecoffee Cup, the brand Mr Gove opted for.
The move certainly attracted plenty of snark on Twitter. But the column inches it attracted in the press could be beneficial for the business and its cause.
Not that the “war on plastic” is struggling for attention at the moment. Blue Planet’s images of albatrosses feeding their chicks toothpicks and turtles swimming among plastic sacks have taken recycling to the top of the political agenda.
Earlier this month Theresa May promised a new crackdown on plastic, extending the carrier bag charge to small retailers, banning single-use plastic from Government departments and encouraging supermarkets to create plastic-free aisles so environmentally conscious shoppers can steer clear of the now-loathed material. Britain isn’t the only country gripped by anti-plastic fever. In recent months the United Nations passed a unanimous resolution committing its members to eliminating plastic pollution in the oceans, the EU called for every piece of packaging produced by 2030 to be recyclable and China banned imports of waste materials. Last week Evian pledged to use 100pc recycled bottles by 2025 and the next day Coca-Cola said it aimed to collect and recycle all its packaging by 2030.
Alternatives might be part of a long-term solution but in the meantime global plastic production continues to swell, reaching 322m tons in 2015 – a large chunk of which will be single-use and is therefore likely to end up in landfills or the sea if recycling rates don’t improve.
Keith Allaun hopes to put some of that excess to good use. His company, Powerhouse Energy Group plc (LON:PHE), has developed a process for turning plastic, and other waste, into synthesis gas, or syngas, which can then be either used to generate electricity or converted into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, both of which have industrial uses.
“We convert any waste plastic or tyres into small granules that we then run through an ultra-high temperature process that thermally degrades the material and converts it into an energy-rich gas,” Allaun says. “This is a completely closed cycle process that creates zero emissions.”
