Waste Management Carriers: Regulation

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am not sure that the right expression is “legal dumping”; I think it is “sending things to the correct place for it to be dealt with and managed”. The big problem is that it is now attractive for criminals to make money out of, and that is what we need to stop.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, when are the Government going to bring in a proper extended producer responsibility? To go back into the history of waste, in 1970, when the environment movements grew up, Keep America Beautiful, followed by Keep Britain Tidy, were campaigns that came from the industry—Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, cigarette companies. They were creating a throwaway world but could not deal with it, so they made it our responsibility to dispose of waste. Fifty-six years later, they are still doing the same thing. Until we say to them, “You are responsible for the waste you are creating, the plastics and the things that do not recycle”, and only 9% of all our waste is recycled, we will carry on having exactly the same problem, certainly until I am dead but probably until all of us are dead.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a really important point. I have met organisations such as Coca-Cola, which I know feels that the money that it has invested should be taken into account when we look at how these things are tackled. Producer responsibility is, again, something that the Government have been looking at. My colleague, Mary Creagh, who has responsibility for these areas, is taking this matter very seriously and, I am sure, will continue to talk to producers about what they need to be doing.