The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has launched a campaign to stop licensing authorities mandating the use of plastic or polycarbonate drinking vessels as a licensing condition for pubs, clubs and other on-trade venues.
CAMRA has previously supported calls made by NGO A Plastic Planet for plastic pints to be included in government bans on single-use plastic. Its research showed that 75% of consumers say that plastic ruins the taste of beer, with 89% going further and saying that they’d like to see plastic pints banned for good.
Despite overwhelming consumer agreement, the on-trade doesn’t currently have much of a say in its use of plastic, with licensing authorities across the UK sometimes mandating the use of plastic or polycarbonate as a condition of a venue’s premises licence. This is something CAMRA would like to see changed.
In venues where pints might be dropped or broken, CAMRA is calling for licensees to be allowed to adopt some of the alternatives to plastic pints, made using everything from paper to aluminum to compostable corn starch.
Through more than 200 branches across the UK, members of the campaigning group are writing to their local licensing authorities asking for a simple change in wording to the licensing conditions applied to venues where using glass wouldn’t be in the interests of public safety. Rather than specifying plastic, licensing could include a wider range of materials or simply give the criteria a material should meet — for example, requiring that beer is served using shatterproof containers.
As it stands, almost 70% of plastic pint cups will end up in landfill or as litter. Plastic cups are the sixth most littered item in UK rivers and eighth most commonly found item on our beaches. With innovative alternatives being developed all the time, CAMRA is asking why pubs and social clubs are still being shackled to single-use plastic.
“CAMRA’s members voted to add environmental campaigning to the areas we lobby on at our 2021 conference, and we want to support the innovators who are creating solutions for a plastic-free pint but can’t currently market their products to the on-trade,” said CAMRA campaigns director, Nick Boley.
“Longer term, CAMRA will be calling for plastic pints to be included in the bans on single-use plastic being rolled out by governments across the UK, to ensure that our nation isn’t clogged with littered plastic pints and that we can always enjoy real ale, cider, and perry without the taste of plastic.
“It is ridiculous for one area of government to be mandating the use of plastic while other areas of government look at banning it, and we want to see a more joined-up approach to this issue.”
• CAMRA is set to unveil its Drink Greener campaign in the latest edition of its Good Beer Guide, which is set to be published on Thursday (27th October).
