Government response to Committee report -
The price of plastic: ending the toll of plastic waste - report published November
2022
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has expressed
surprise and disappointment after the government disagreed with
key recommendations in its report on dealing with the growing
problem of plastic waste.
The cross-party MPs’ parliamentary scrutiny body conducted an
extensive inquiry beginning in July 2021. The headline
recommendation of its report, published in November 2022, called
for a ban on the export of all plastic waste – a large amount of
which ends up being illegally dumped – by the end of
2027.
The Committee heard that the UK is highly reliant on plastic
waste exports, sending around 60% of the plastic waste it
generates abroad for processing. It took evidence of alarming
accounts of some British plastic waste being dumped and burned in
Turkey, causing “irreversible and shocking” environmental and
human health impacts.
However, the government response to the report, published today,
disagreed with the recommended ban on the export of plastic
waste, saying legitimate exports have a role in the management of
UK waste. This was despite the fact that even the
government-commissionedIndependent Review of
Net-Zero recently made a similar recommendation.
While the government reiterated its intention to ban plastic
waste exports to non-OECD countries, such destinations only
accounted for 20% of all UK exports in 2020 and this figure looks
set to shrink yet further in any case, as the Committee’s report
pointed out.
The Committee said its recommendation to stop exporting plastic
waste would encourage the development of a larger recycling
industry in the UK, which would create jobs and boost the economy
as well as being better for the environment.
The Committee’s report made recommendations across the whole
plastic supply chain - including calling for tougher targets and
a better focus on reduction and reuse of plastics - most of which
have been rejected by the government.
This included the government rejecting our call for it to make
more plastic packaging producers pay for the cost of waste
disposal (instead of, currently, the main burden falling on local
authorities). Under current proposals known as ‘extended producer
responsibility’ or EPR businesses that produce less than 50
tonnes of plastic packaging will be exempt from charges. The
Committee had recommended that this threshold should extend down
to companies producing over 1 tonne of plastic packaging.
The government said this would place too much of a burden on
small producers, despite the Committee recommending that this
should not be put in place until 2030, so allowing smaller
enterprises time to adapt.
The full government response to the Committee’s report can
be found here.
The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee,
Sir MP, said:
“It’s a shame the government has turned down recommendations
from the Committee’s long running and carefully considered
inquiry.
“Plastic waste is one of the major environmental issues of
our age – as a visit to many beaches or inland beauty spots will
show. But what’s good for our environment could also have been
good for the economy as well. Our recommendation to ban plastic
waste exports by 2027 was partly aimed to help develop a
multimillion-pound plastic waste recycling industry in the UK,
supporting hundreds of jobs.
“We will be watching carefully to see if the government
reaches its stated – but I’m afraid rather vague - ambition to
eliminate what it calls ‘avoidable’ plastic waste by 2042 and
make producers more responsible for the plastics they use. We
acknowledge there are already some reforms in these areas – now
we need to monitor their impact and see whether they properly
tackle the problem of plastic waste”.
