Recycled Plastics

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are human health issues related to plastics pollution and huge environmental damage done. At a recent Ospar convention, I saw a fulmar having its guts opened up for us to look at, and you can see the plastics in its guts system and its gizzard. It just gives you an idea of how many thousands—millions, even—of birds around the world are dying because of plastics pollution. We need to have a greater understanding of the impact on human health, and that is why our One Health agenda is really important in this field.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about the deposit return scheme, and said that it would be coming in in October 2025. Why has it taken so long? People are incredibly frustrated about this; they want it introduced as quickly as possible. Is the delay partly because the Government are reconsidering its scope?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, we want this to be a United Kingdom scheme. The noble Baroness will be aware of complications in Scotland, and we want to make sure that we are introducing this in conjunction, so that we do not have booze cruises from Scotland to England to buy drinks that will not fall within that scheme. We now think that we can work with this. In the context of the whole piece, with our plastics packaging tax, and recycling increasing dramatically over the last decade, we are now requiring households right across the country, uniform across the local authorities, to recycle all six waste streams by 2027. With the bag charge, which has seen a 98% reduction in the use of those, and the introduction of the banning of single-use plastic straws and a whole range of other single-use plastics, I think even the noble Baroness would admit that we are doing our best.