Draft Environmental Protection (Microbeads) (England) Regulations 2017

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 General Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for what I believe is your first outing, Mr Austin. I hope you will find it a rewarding experience that you will want to repeat.

I, too, support the SI, although a little reluctantly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said from the Front Bench, it is not ambitious enough. As part of our debates in the Chamber last week about the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, we discussed whether the House should have the ability to amend statutory instruments. If that had been possible, I would have tabled amendments to the draft regulations. Given the scale of the microplastics problem, we need to be ambitious and radical, and we need to be ahead of everyone else.

Other countries are introducing similar bans. The USA has the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, which covers only rinse-off products. New Zealand is bringing in a ban on the sale of personal care products containing microbeads from July next year, and Taiwan is doing the same. Canada plans to ban microbeads in shower gels, toothpaste and face wash by 1 July 2018, and in natural health products and non-prescription drugs from 1 July 2019. My first question to the Minister is: have we looked at what Canada is trying to do to see whether we can replicate that here?

It is almost obligatory to mention “Blue Planet” in such discussions. I point out on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West, who is a Whip and cannot speak in the debate, that the BBC’s natural history unit is in her constituency. We both have many constituents who take great pride in being involved in that unit, which is truly the jewel in the BBC’s crown. While I am in self-congratulatory mode, I will also say that the report of the Environmental Audit Committee—of which I am a member—on microbeads was trailblazing and important. I will now get on to the less self-congratulatory and more depressing stuff.

Our starting point should be to look not at what is easy to ban but at the harm done by microbeads and all microplastics. I have no idea how these things are calculated, but it is estimated that there are 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes in the ocean, and we have heard that 100,000 microbeads can be washed down the sink in a single application of a rinse-off product. For example, Neutrogena’s Deep Clean, which is an exfoliating scrub, has 300,000 microplastic ingredients in just one tub. That is the scale of the situation.

When microplastic gets into the ocean, small animals mistake it for food and risk starvation either because they believe their stomachs are full—instead their stomachs are full of plastic—and they starve as a result, or because of blockages in their intestines, causing death. Microplastic can also be ingested by filter feeders such as bristle worms, sea stars, sea urchins, sea slugs and many other things that my researcher listed for me but that I cannot pronounce so will not read out. They become prey for larger marine creatures, so the microplastic accumulates further up the food chain and eventually ends up in the human food chain too.

Microplastic also starves coral species by clogging their digestive systems—in essence, starving the coral reduces its growth and spread. We know about the plight of coral reefs because of ocean acidification and ocean warming, but microplastic is another factor that causes great harm. As has been said, over time microplastics will accumulate toxins attracted to their surface—pesticides, flame retardants, motor oil and other industrial chemicals —so they too are entering the food chain.

The scale of the problem is immense. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax and organisations such as Greenpeace have said, the ban should not be limited only to rinse-off products. It should also include products such as sunscreens and deodorants. The Minister said that there is not much evidence that they enter the water—she said that they are wiped off—but clearly, if people go for a swim wearing sunscreen and deodorant, that will get into the water pretty quickly or when they have a shower back in their hotel room.

There are plenty of products that people can use that do not contain harmful microbeads. I find this frustrating. There is a ban on animal testing of cosmetic products. It is easy to find alternatives to such products and the same is true of products containing microbeads. Why do we let the market simply lead the way and say that consumers are able to choose? Labelling is an issue and consumers may not necessarily know what they are really buying. Why do we not take the example of the best companies, which have phased out such products, and say that everyone else has to follow suit?

Following the ban on testing cosmetics on animals, people are now pushing for a ban on such testing with household products, and I think that the same should apply to products containing microplastics. Although the UK cleaning products industry says that it does not use microplastic ingredients in any product, that is not true of products of non-UK manufacturers that can be sold and used here. I do not see why the ban cannot be extended to them.

The Plastic Soup Foundation, which campaigns for plastic-free oceans, also supports a ban on microbeads in leave-on as well as rinse-off products. It has called for reconsideration of the exemption of polymers from REACH—the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals scheme. The Minister has appeared before the Environmental Audit Committee to talk about what happens to REACH post-Brexit, which is a whole other can of worms that we could open. Does she think that polymers should be included under REACH or whatever the British equivalent will be once we leave? The foundation is calling for the European Union to impose and enforce a ban on all polymer ingredients that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic to ecosystems.

I have used the term “microplastics” rather than “microbeads” throughout because, if we look at the harm they can cause to our aquatic environment, we will see that it is pretty meaningless to separate the two. Only a very small percentage of microplastics in our oceans are made up of microbeads. A 2016 Japanese study put the figure at 9.7% and European studies have put it as low as 0.1% or, at the most, 4.1%.

Most microplastics in our oceans are larger plastics that have broken down from bottles, packaging, old fishing nets and so on—in other words, anything that has not been recycled or disposed of correctly—so a ban on microbeads is clearly not enough to make significant inroads into reducing plastic pollution in the ocean. We must look at the bigger picture, tackle the amount of single-use plastics used and produced, introduce a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and so on.

The Environment Secretary announced a four-point plan today, but the slowness with which the Government are approaching this agenda is frustrating. I have asked questions in the Chamber about what they are doing about plastics pollution, and they have very proudly said, “We put the tax on plastic bags and are introducing a ban on microbeads,” but that is simply a drop in the ocean. We must go much further, much more quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I will try to restrict my reply to the regulations. I could wax lyrical about marine litter and microplastics for a long time, but I assure the hon. Member for Halifax that if the particles in wax are less than 5 mm, they are included in the scope of the ban.

With regard to the definition of plastic, REACH does not define what plastics are but defines individual products. We felt that was not an effective way to achieve our aim, so the broader, well-known definition of plastic is used to ensure that we cover every single product. With regard to what products microbeads are used in and looking at other countries, as I articulated earlier, the very fact that we are banning any plastic particle less than or equal to 5 mm—we are not saying that it is only those microbeads that have a particular effect that are banned—is going further than the other countries mentioned. For the sake of doubt, nor have we limited the scope of what a rinse-off product is; it includes, but is not limited to, shower gels, body washes, intimate washes, liquid soaps, solid soaps and beaded hand cleaners. That will include things such as the Neutrogena product but also industrial products. Our farmers use Swarfega and similar, and the same will happen there. I could go on with a variety of things, including toothpaste, mouthwash, depilatory creams and gels, and similar elements.

We have asked the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee to review the issue—the hon. Lady referred to this—of leave-on toiletries that can be absorbed or shed and are not designed to be washed off. I do not have a specific timeline for that at the moment, because the other thing we asked for in the consultation was a wider view on other products. The challenge with microplastics is that they extend to many sources. For example, the recycling of a lot of our plastic bottles goes to create things such as synthetic fleeces, which are popular with vegans because they are a way of keeping warm without using wool. Of course, they are also used extensively by people who are not vegans.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

No. That is another example of products that have become part of everyday life. However, when they go through a washing machine, microfibres and microplastics are released. The regulations also extend to things such as tyres, because in tyre wear we see microplastics generated, washed on to the road, then into our water courses and so on. It is a challenge across a wide range of products. In particular, we focused on this because we know the evidence is already there. We know that our existing sewage treatments cover particles from about 6 mm upwards, so this is a specific way to try to address the problem by stopping at source the very generation of microbeads in products that are widely used. We wanted to tackle that.

If the hon. Member for Halifax has evidence that cleaning products with microbeads are available, she should please let me know and we can look at that. So far, the evidence we have seen is that no such cleaning products are available for sale. We need to ensure that, dare I say it, we regulate to address the problem in hand and not just create regulations for their own sake.

With regard to the devolved nations, yes, the consultation was UK-wide between the four Governments. We cannot dictate the processes by which they bring the ban into effect, but we are working with them to try to ensure that we coincide the ban that will come in due course.

As the hon. Member for Gedling knows, the 21 days will kick in from when the regulations are voted through the House—I think they have gone through the House of Lords today. Then, in essence, manufacture will become an offence, and then sale will become an offence. I suggest to the Committee that it will become more difficult for people to buy such products for resale in their shops. Of course, today the products are legal, so people can choose to sell them but, as we have seen, many companies have already taken action.

I point out that the regulations also cover the import of products, so if they are imported they still cannot be sold—that deals with that challenge. In terms of international actions, it might surprise the Committee to know that we had to get permission from the European Union and the World Trade Organisation. We initiated that on 28 July. We had to have a three-month process for objections, and there were none. We also have to go through other regulatory processes where we make the case, which is one of the reasons it takes so long. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) who brought the issue to the attention of the Environmental Audit Committee when giving evidence some time ago. Members are right to pay tribute to that Committee, but that is an explanation of why it takes quite so long to reach the point we have got to today.

I do not think the regulations are necessarily the end of the process. I am sure that the Committee will want to be assured that we are taking appropriate action. We are addressing wider issues of microplastics getting into the environment. We need to continue to work with industry to ensure that it has time to develop alternatives.

The 680 tonnes is the amount used in cosmetics, and we recognise that not all of it ends up in the marine environment. I would not want to throw out a figure just to satisfy the hon. Member for Gedling. The point is that we are removing these microbeads at source so that there is at least a reduction from what we have today.