Recycled Plastics

Debate between Lord Benyon and Baroness Meacher

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point. Domestically, we are seeking to increase the supply of recycled plastics and reduce the demand, through regulation and tax, for virgin plastics, but we recognise that whatever we do domestically will not help to solve this global problem. That is why we are a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. At the United Nations Environment Assembly in March, we drove through, with Rwanda and Peru, a commitment to see an end to plastic pollution by 2042.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, the Birmingham expert commission on plastics and the environment, which I chaired, recommended the introduction of a sliding-scale tax on plastic packaging. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government will introduce such a sliding-scale tax, which would greatly benefit the environment?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are looking at all sorts of reforms to our measures. The plastic packaging tax increases with inflation and has gone up to £217 per tonne this year. We are continuing to look at extended producer responsibility reforms and to see whether the work that the noble Baroness has talked about has an application in terms of how we deliver these regulations.

Clothing Sales: Sustainability

Debate between Lord Benyon and Baroness Meacher

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

What the Government can have the most control over is what happens to clothing when it has finished being used, so we are working with the industry on durability and then diverting it away from landfill. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right that the supply chain comes from right around the world. The amount of clothing produced doubled between 2015 and 2020. This was because of a higher number of middle-class people and their demand for clothing, and it has come at a great environmental cost. The clothing industry may not be the biggest emitter, in terms of carbon and its impact on water, but the Government are working internationally and domestically to tackle this very serious problem.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, as the chair of a new commission on plastics and the environment, I am conscious of the contribution of clothing to the mass of plastics gradually killing off our oceans. Are the Government doing anything to reduce the amount of plastics used in clothing materials in order to begin to address that problem?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are certainly having ongoing engagement with the industry to try to reduce the amount of plastics. Of course, there is sometimes a trade-off with plastics when you are trying to get more durable garments that are not disposed of so quickly, but the UK water industry research project, which was done by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, reported in April last year that wastewater treatment plants remove 99% of microplastics by number and 99.5% by mass. We are looking at what France is proposing, which is a mandatory filter in washing machines, and that may be a direction down which we will go.