Food and Drink Package Recycling in Urban Food Systems: Contexts and Comparisons, Lessons and Experiences
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Central
Our one-day workshop at Birkbeck will bring experts on issues of retail plastics, recycling and urban food system governance into conversation over recycling models in urban food systems. Inspired by Professor Anne Murcott’s’ book The (Not So) Secret Lives of Food Packaging (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024) discussions will explore tensions between business growth, environmental sustainability, social wellbeing, and regulation regarding retail food and drink plastic recycling.
Welcome and Introductions: 10:30
Session I, 11:00-12:30: Professor Xaq Frohlich, Auburn University, “Thinking Inside the Box: Reconsidering the life-cycle histories of food packaging”
Lunch 12:30-13:30
Session II, 13:30-15:00: Roundtable with academics and practitioners facilitated by Prof Pam Yeow: Dr. Randa Kachef, School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London · Ms Paula Chin, Senior Policy Advisor (Consumption), WWF · Ms Yandis Ying, Chief Bubble Officer, DotDot Tea
Tea & Coffee: 15:00-15:30
Session III, 15:30-17:00 : Keynote Lecture/Presentation Prof Anne Murcott, SOAS, University of London
Event format: Hybrid
Event contacts: Prof Pamela Yeow p.yeow@bbk.ac.uk ; Prof Alex Colas a.colas@bbk.ac.uk
Contact name: Prof Pamela Yeow
Speakers-
Dr Randa Kachef
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Dr. Randa L. Kachef is an urban waste and sustainability expert, whose work and research are focused around reducing environmental impacts through infrastructure, product innovation and policy change. Her research spans a variety of topics within waste reduction, particularly litter, material recovery, and sewage. An experienced science communicator with a background in corporate marketing, she is a frequent consultant and commentator on topics where science and policy overlap.
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Ms Paula Chin
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Until recently, Paula was a Senior Policy Adviser at WWF-UK and Chair of the Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Circular Economy Working Group. Her specialist policy areas include circular economy, waste management and packaging and plastics. With over 20 years of experience in the packaging industry, she has worked across manufacturing, design, and food retail, with roles at Procter & Gamble, Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer, and Pret.
She played a leading role in influencing the Government to adopt Greener UK's priority amendment for the Resource and Waste chapter of the Environment Act, served as an adviser on UKRI's Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Fund and sits on several government and industry working groups including initiatives related to scaling up reusable packaging systems. She is also an eNGO representative on PackUK’s Steering Group, the scheme administrator for packaging extended producer responsibility.
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Ms Yandis Ying
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Yandis Ying, founder of Dot Dot Tea
London-based Bubble Tea brand, Dot Dot Tea, is a business that has skyrocketed since its opening. Founder Yandis Ying set up the company after pursuing new career path that enabled her entrepreneurial drive, while allowing her to be a mother to her daughter. Dot Dot Tea is the UK’s first ready to drink bubble tea in a bottle that soon caught the attention of venture capital and angel investors, after its popularity grew on local London highstreets. In just over two years, Dot Dot Tea is now sold in London’s most popular landmark, and also available nationwide at supermarkets, restaurant chains and local stores including Ocado and Nobu hotels, Selfridges, Kew Gardens and across independent venues and cinemas in the UK.
The business has successfully secured a Start Up Loan with support from the Business Enterprise Fund, and received financial backing from one of the UK’s leading FMCG venture capital investors, and a group of industry experts who have joined as angel investors including Little Moons, Tony's Chocolonely, Wild deodorants, Nails Inc, Loungers, The Collective yoghurts, Astrid and Miyu.
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Professor Anne Murcott
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Trained in both social anthropology and sociology, Professor Anne Murcott (SOAS, London, University of Nottingham, Emerita London South Bank University) has, for four decades, studied features of food in society, ranging from family meals, food waste through to entomophagy (insect eating). Branching out in another direction most recently she published The (not so) secret lives of food packaging (Bloomsbury 2024) the topic of her talk at the workshop.
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Professor Xaq Frohlich
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Xaq Frohlich is Associate Professor of History of Technology in Auburn University’s Department of History and author of From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (UC Press, 2013). His research explores food labeling, risk communication, consumer politics, and the boundaries between food, health, and environment. His international experience includes a Fulbright in Spain, a postdoc at KAIST in South Korea, and visiting appointments in Vienna, Paris, Hong Kong and Denmark.
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