Environment Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have signed Amendment 8, and I support the others in this group. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, not just on an excellent, very clear introductory speech but on her relatively simple, clear Amendment 8. Is it not obvious to everybody that we need to reduce the volume of non-essential single-use plastic products—and more than just plastic, but plastic predominantly?

Plastic is the most incredible material. I could not function without it. But, before lockdown, my partner and I had reduced our single-use disposable plastic to virtually nothing. Covid put a hole in that, because so much food is wrapped up and there was not much choice. But now we do have a choice, and it is obvious to everybody that we have to encourage a policy environment that diverts food manufacturers and retailers towards, for example, compostable materials for food-contact packaging instead of plastics. Of course, we have to make sure we can compost those materials easily and not just by some special arrangement with local authorities.

A Plastic Planet is a global solutions organisation, and it has the single goal of inspiring the world to turn off the plastics tap by working with politicians, the UN, scientists and industry to convey the importance of the situation and to take action in reducing the use of plastic. It has created several schemes. Our Government could just pick up many of those schemes and use them immediately; they are ready-made and oven-ready.

According to 2020 figures from WRAP, flexible plastic represents a quarter of all UK consumer packaging, and plastic packaging is 40% of global plastic production. It is a problem. Only 4% of that consumer plastic packaging is currently recycled. The rest ends up in landfill or incineration, contaminating other waste streams such as food waste or, worse, our oceans and natural habitats where wildlife is threatened. It is threatened not just by contamination but by direct injury. We have all seen photographs of animals tied up, and birds tied up in plastic and dying. As WRAP acknowledges in its road map:

“Urgent action is required to address the complex challenges that underpin this: poor design, collection infrastructure, inconsistent communications, sorting challenges, reprocessing technology, capacity and unstable end markets.”


The Government claim to be a leader in tackling plastics pollution, but Greenpeace pointed out that they are actually fuelling the plastics crisis. The UK is the biggest contributor to this waste production behind the USA. What we do is force our waste on other countries. Some have refused, but, apparently, 40% of our plastic waste is sent to Turkey, where of course it is producing serious health problems for the people in the surrounding areas, such as respiratory issues, nosebleeds and headaches. So the Government are fuelling not just the nature emergency but health crises as well, and you have to take responsibility for that.

The Green Party has a long-term policy whose aim is to have no more than 20% residual waste and to recycle and compost more than 80%: also, to have the costs of disposal charged to all district councils in direct relation to the quantity of waste collected for disposal by each district. This provides an incentive to district councils to promote waste reduction and increase recycling, as they will save directly on disposable costs. I hesitate to put more pressure on councils, because they are already incredibly strap-cashed—I mean cash-strapped; it is getting very late for me, it is 50 minutes past my bedtime. They are already deprived of funds by this Government, so they would have to be funded to do this.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am very persuaded by my noble friend’s argument for a holistic approach to waste. Could my noble friend take this opportunity, in the context of these amendments, to set out how his approach would differ from the circular economy which we were signed up to when we were members of the European Union? I hate to deprive the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, of her beauty sleep, but, at the risk of doing so, I will ask my noble friend why we are continuing and indeed increasing our export to countries such as Turkey and, I understand, other third countries, considering that we have the facilities to dispose. We are a first-world country and have much better facilities to dispose of this. My understanding is that landfill sites, certainly in England, are full and that many have already closed. I just wonder how, in the context of disposing in particular of plastic waste, we will address this issue as a responsible Government.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, but I was getting increasingly worried, over the years, that I was tending to agree with so much of what she said. Then I realised, when I saw her sitting temporarily behind me, that she might be a closet Conservative after all. I was quite overwhelmed and thought how much more joy there is over one sinner that repenteth than over 99 just persons.

I was tempted to support these amendments, even to the point of a vote. When I heard the announcement last week from my noble friend at Defra that they were planning to ban single-use cutlery and plastic plates, I asked myself: if a Minister has the power to do this without putting anything in the Bill, can he extend it to other plastics as well? That is my main question for him. If he can do that, I would like him to target my bête noire which, initially, is polystyrene. There is absolutely no justification now for any polystyrene food dishes whatever: whether they are used as takeaways, for carry-outs or plastic cups, there are paper alternatives.

The other totally unjustified use of polystyrene—without rehearsing the speech I made in Committee—is in packaging material, whether it is those awful plastic bubbles that go everywhere and get stuck to everything under the sun, or large pieces of polystyrene holding televisions or tape recorders and so on. There is no need for them whatever, because cardboard can do the job infinitely better—it is just as sound and can protect valuable material. I also suggest that that should be a target: one could move on that very quickly indeed. The polystyrene used in house construction is another matter; it could take longer to come up with an alternative.

There is a final form of plastic I would like the Minister to tackle. If one buys ready meals, for example, some seem to come in grey containers, some in white containers and some in black containers, but I understand that if they are all mixed together in recycling, the whole thing is useless—only some of them are recyclable. So I simply say to my noble friend that, if he has powers to do so, can he start to compel the food manufacturers and supermarkets to go for a plastic microwavable dish that is recyclable and get rid of those which destroy the recyclability of the good ones?

Those are the only points I wish to make to my noble friend and I come back to my question: can he reassure me that he and Defra have all the necessary powers, in due course, to ban any other forms of plastic, whether it is horrible little sachets with shampoo in them, plastic food containers or polystyrene? That is all I seek from my noble friend tonight.