Have a litte hope

In the ongoing series of his exclusive column, the first instalment of 2019 sees the BPF’s Director-General, Philip Law, reflect on the significance of a major new plastics waste alliance, discuss the ongoing Brexit saga and explain why hope is something we should all have.

The announcement about the creation of the ‘Alliance To End Plastics Waste’ is great cause for optimism. It’s backed up by a $1 billion fund, with a prospect of that increasing to $1.5 billion. We will be able to point to a very substantial action taken by the global plastics industry to address the problem at its major source, Asia. Thirty companies are currently contributing.

It’s a whole supply chain initiative with the Presidency being filled by the CEO of Proctor and Gamble. The bulk of the funders are global polymer supply companies, including some prominent members of the BPF. The Alliance is emphatically not a lobbying organisation. It is all about funding and managing projects which make a practical difference.

It wants to partner with major cities, especially those along rivers where there is poor waste management infrastructure and it will provide innovative technologies to prevent ocean waste. It will focus on the 10 major rivers which are responsible for carrying the largest amounts of land borne waste into the sea. It will also try to actually clean up areas of concentrated waste.

These themes and more will be covered in the ‘Identiplast’ conference to be held in London at the QE II Centre in Westminster on March 7th-8th. Organised by PlasticsEurope with the BPF, it will provide an unrivalled opportunity to network with global experts on plastics waste management. 

“Persistent” Brexit Concerns

Our recent survey of member firms on their attitude to Brexit underlined persistent concerns. Two thirds of participating companies did not expect Brexit to benefit their business, in contrast to the seven per cent who thought it would. You can read in full the results of the survey here.

As I write, I have just been alerted to the sombre news of the planned closure of the Philips Avent plant in Glemsford, not just bad news for its employees, but also for suppliers of materials and equipment, not to mention suppliers of local services. Whilst Brexit was not the only cause, it certainly provided a gloomy backdrop to decision taking in Philips.

We are urging the leaders of the major political parties to reach an early agreement based on the national interest and not on political advantage to individual parties or factions.

Have a Little Hope

The Headmaster at my son’s school opened the first assembly of the new term with the message that it is the very duty of a human being to have hope. I fully agree with this sentiment. It has never been more relevant than today. When everything else is stripped away, hope is all that we can have.

Our current predicament, shaped, for example, by the increased public interest in plastics and by the Brexit debate, and one can add in the rise of populism in politics to boot, stems from one root cause and that is the growing disregard for wisdom based on knowledge.

Knowledge no longer appears to matter. But our hope lies in the education of the next generation. The BPF’s Polymer Ambassadors’ programme aims to help companies interface with schools and to communicate knowledge about plastics and related subjects, but also let’s make sure that young people have a sense of history and that the lessons of the past are not lost.

The Past Inspiring the Future

The past can provide inspiring examples of behaviour and achievement. I was reminded of this in early January when I learnt of the recent, sad loss of two very important figures in the BPF’s heritage.

One was Geoff Stanley, General Manager of the BPF from the mid 1950’s to the mid 70s. A Cambridge graduate, he’d joined the BPF just after being demobbed after the War. I’d had the great privilege of meeting him twice, a man of great modesty, who’d been a junior officer in a tank regiment.

He described his involvement in a pitched battle with the SS in Normandy as if it was a mere walk in the park on a quiet afternoon. It was Geoff who negotiated the insertion of the UK’s plastics materials and products into the European Free Trade Association’s trading arrangements. He was also the author of the BPF’s history, ‘The Moulding of an Industry’.

The second was someone I knew much more closely, Dick Finnis, President of the BPF in the early 90s. In his younger days, Dick had been the Personal Assistant to the Chairman of ICI, Sir Paul Chambers, and had been fast-tracked to the top job in ICI’s Chlor-Alkali business.

He was Managing Director of EVC UK when he retired. He was a man of impeccable courtesy with a wide-ranging mind. If anyone was endowed with ‘helicopter vision’, it was certainly Dick. Astoundingly, he always appeared quite unhurried but acted incredibly rapidly. In the late 1980’s he foresaw the emergence of the environmental issue as a serious threat to the industry and was insistent that defensiveness was not the answer. He was supportive of all attempts to strengthen the professionalism of the BPF.

Two figures from a rapidly receding past, but they certainly live on as vital source of inspiration to me, and, I’m sure, to many in their respective families, today.