EFRA Committee letter on plastic waste
November 7, 2022
Last week, alongside members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, Julian called for a total ban on the export of all plastic waste from the UK by 2027. The core aim of this is to reduce Britain’s contribution to global plastic waste pollution, as well as taking ownership and responsibility on this key environmental issue.
There is an estimated 380 million tonnes of plastic produced worldwide, each year, many of which is single use. The Committee has called for the UK government to recognise its social reasonability to the environment, with Britain currently exporting 60% of its 2.5 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste, mainly ending up in Turkey.
The UK Government has shown itself to be a world leader in regards to passing ground-breaking environmental polices and recognising the importance of framing environmental degradation as the salinet threat that it is. The Environment Act 2021 has seen the UK achieve significant progress in tackling plastic pollution through The Resources and Waste Strategy for England.
Julian Sturdy comments that “The Government has shown true leadership in regards to tackling domestic plastic waste through The Environment Act 2021, and recognises the importance of developing an efficient recycling system and dealing with more of its own waste at home. I am pleased that the committee has strongly advocated a total ban on plastic waste exports from the UK by 2027, and hope that the Government takes this bold proposal forward into law”.
Following the Committee meeting last week, the Chair, Sir Robert Goodwill MP (Scarbourgh and Whitby) stated that:
“For far too long the UK has been reliant on exporting its waste overseas and making it someone else’s problem. Plastic waste originating in our country is being illegally dumped and burned abroad. The UK must not be a part of this dirty trade and that’s why we are calling for a total ban on waste plastic exports.
“To do this we need to reduce how much plastic we use and consume, invest in greater capacity to reprocess our own waste and support research into new technologies and materials. If the UK takes a lead in this, we have the potential to create hundreds of new jobs and build a multi-billion pound waste management industry”.
Furthermore, The EFRA committee has made broad, long-term recommendations to HM Government that seeks to target the level of waste, particularly single use, by increasing the UK’s domestic recycling capacity, greater investment and creating a more sustainable and circular economy.
Please see below the key recommendations made by the committee to the government in order to achieve the goals of the committee’s conclusion.
• Calling for a ban on all exports of UK plastic waste by the end of 2027. The government should publish a roadmap on how to achieve this by March 2023.
• Encouraging greater adherence to the ‘waste hierarchy’ which stipulates, first, reducing the volume of waste by eliminating unnecessary use or packaging, then encouraging re-use of it, before turning to recycling. The committee recommends that government targets are reformed to more closely follow this waste hierarchy – and aim for all plastic waste to be recycled, re-used or composted by 2042.
• Expediting the rollout of ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’, which will see producers of plastic packaging pay fees on the packaging products they put on the market. This should incentivise them to reduce the amount of packaging they produce and use more easily recyclable materials. The committee also recommended that the scheme is applied to more producers – covering all businesses that put more than 1 tonne of packaging on the market – by 2030.
• Creating a taskforce to explore ways of encouraging greater uptake of ‘re-use and refill’ schemes – such as those where customers use their own containers to fill up with a product. These could include possible charges on single-use products, and initiatives aimed at encouraging public awareness and uptake of re-use and refill schemes.
• Confirming its support for the Plastic Packaging Tax which is applied to products that contain less than 30% of plastic from recycled sources. This tax is expected to increase the demand for recycled plastic material – and so encourage investment in the recycling sector. This 30% level should vary according to the needs of different sectors and should be increased over time.
• Using some of the income raised by the Extended Producer Responsibility and Plastic Packaging Tax schemes to invest in recycling infrastructure and to support research in technologies that can tackle hard to recycle plastics, such as plastic films.
