Extract from oral answer (Lords) on Single-Use Plastics - Mar 7

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and the Government on going as far as they have. Is part of the difficulty the confusion over the different types of plastics? On 4 March, the Government produced a press release on post-consumer plastic, which includes household plastic and other uses. Would it not be better for this to be disposed of through issues such as energy from waste  so that we were dealing with two problems at the same time: disposing of plastics and feeding into energy for households to use locally?

The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con): My Lords, our approach must put the main emphasis on reducing the amount of plastic being created in the first place. There are vast numbers of items that are made of single-use plastic where there is no justification for doing so, especially since we know that the vast majority of them will end up in the environment or managed inappropriately. This must be the focus, but my noble friend makes an important point.

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