Plastics Recycling

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Viscount Trenchard

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Again, here, industry has a number of pressure points. One is the packaging tax—a new tax on plastic packaging—which will take effect from April 2022 and will apply to plastic packaging with less than 30% recycled content. There are a number of others, such as extending producer responsibility. We must not always knock industry because there are many examples of it seeking an alternative, such as plastic-free aisles and different sorts of packaging. I agree that one of the most frustrating things is that we cannot currently put plastic film in our recycling bins.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

I declare an interest as a director of Lotte Chemical UK, which is the principal manufacturer of polyethylene terephthalate or PET. I was surprised to hear the Minister say that many councils are now collecting used material and providing it for recycling, because Lotte Chemical is able to obtain only enough recycled material to form 10% of our finished products. We wish to increase that to about 28%. Does the Minister agree that the Government should concentrate on establishing a standardised recycling policy across the whole country rather than encourage the use of substitute materials, which can have more negative consequences?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

We sometimes need to be careful about unintended consequences, which is why we have considered biodegradable and bio-based plastics. Some 13.5 billion plastic bottles are used in the UK each year; the current household recycling rate for them is 70%. Thirty per cent is not good, but I will take back what my noble friend has said because that is quite a lot of bottles to recycle.