Microbead Ban

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and to take part in this important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) for securing it and for her comprehensive summary of the situation. It will come as no surprise that I spent an awful long time on my products this morning, although I cannot claim I was applying beauty products. I was trying to read the small print on the shampoo and toothpaste. I am still none the wiser about what is in them, but I am fairly certain that if nothing else, the product packaging can break down into microbeads.

We have had a very consensual, informative debate and have heard from a range of speakers. I will add the viewing recommendations made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) to my weekend watch list. I am also interested in the suggestion by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) of a fishing for plastic solution. That needs to be looked into further and could be very useful.

It is fair to say that our debate may not be the biggest political attraction in the House today, but these tiny particles are a major issue—some estimates put the number in the world’s oceans as high as between 15 trillian and 51 trillion—and tackling them is of great importance. There is some debate about just how many there are—we do not really know. There is much that we do not know, if we are being honest. If we are to accurately quantify their impact and effectively monitor their presence in our seas, we need to learn a lot more about them.

There is no doubt that microbeads are doing preventable damage to our marine environment. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) told us, it is estimated that as much as 86 tonnes of microplastics are released into the environment every year in the UK from facial exfoliants alone. We should be grateful that some cosmetic companies have voluntarily decided to phase them out, but there is no legal requirement to do so. I therefore welcome the Government’s steps to bring forward a ban; it is constructive and helpful.

I am grateful for the work of the Environmental Audit Committee, which has called for a ban on microplastics, and for the UK Government accepting that recommendation and taking swift steps to initiate a ban later this year. The Scottish Government have confirmed that they will work with the UK Government and the devolved Administrations to implement the proposed ban on microbeads in personal care products. In Scotland we have already undertaken a fair amount of research, trying to raising awareness among consumers and encouraging the use of alternatives.

As my hon. Friend said, marine litter costs Scotland £16.8 million every year and has wide-ranging environmental impacts. The SNP Scottish Government have prioritised an action plan to protect Scotland’s marine environment, and in August 2014 we launched Scotland’s first ever marine litter strategy. “A Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland” details almost 40 new actions to minimise coastal and marine litter. A key action of the strategy is to encourage alternatives to plastic microbeads around the world, and the proposed ban would greatly facilitate that.

I should like to take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally). He is unable to be with us today, but he has a great interest in this subject and it was through him that I first learned of microbeads. We have neighbouring constituencies that both suffer from microplastic pollution washed up along the shoreline of the River Forth. My hon. Friend, who also sits on the Environmental Audit Committee, recognises that the problem of microplastics goes beyond plastic scrub beads in cosmetics. He supports the campaign for a ban on microplastic ingredients in consumer products and for better measures to tackle plastic pollution as a whole. I share those views.

Towards those ends, my hon. Friend has been working with a Scottish charity called Fidra, which is working in tandem with Fauna & Flora International to eliminate microplastics from consumer products and prevent the loss of pre-production plastic pellets from the industry. He has helped them to promote a number of initiatives to help consumers to avoid plastic-containing down-the-drain products, as well as a citizen science project called “The Great Nurdle Hunt”, which tracks where plastic pellets lost from the industry end up.

Last year I took part in a nurdle hunt with Fidra on a visit to Kinneil in my constituency. It would be fair to say that I did not have to do much hunting, so rife was the problem. Sadly, that is not uncommon. A thousand pellets per square metre can be found on beaches around the Forth—I realise that I shall probably now not be on VisitScotland’s Christmas card for advertising that fact. I collected enough to fill a small jar very quickly. The hardest part was picking them up, but spotting them was incredibly easy. My new collection of pellets from the beach are clearly in various stages of weathering and have various colours. Many look fairly new or unweathered, which suggests that they have been spilt relatively recently. Not all are as historical as we might wish. All spills are avoidable, but unfortunately they are still happening.

All spills are not necessarily local either; they can occur around the globe and pellets can be transported long distances, highlighting the need for international co-operation to combat marine litter. It is perhaps of little surprise that Kinneil and neighbouring areas are hotspots for such pollution, with the large-scale manufacture of plastics locally and with so much transportation of goods by sea taking place in the vicinity.

Spills are accidental, of course, and are not an inevitable part of manufacture or freight transport. Operation Clean Sweep is a voluntary, industry-led scheme across the supply chain, which has support from a range of firms locally. Thanks to the work of Fidra, working with the local plastics and supply chain firms, around a third of firms in the area have signed up to the pledge. The companies pledge not to spill pellets into the wider environment and participants are provided with a handbook that suggests simple, low-costs measures to avoid doing that.

Welcome though that scheme is, its sign-up rate across the UK more widely is fairly low, with perhaps as little as 1% of companies taking part. It also lacks any external audit or reporting; consequently, the level of success or otherwise is unknown. I suggest that Ministers look at measures to enhance that voluntary approach and to require the industry to prove its effectiveness. I believe that legislation may be required to ensure that best practice is in place across the supply chain.

In conclusion, this is a global problem and it is vital that we all play our part in trying to resolve it. It is also vital, therefore, that the UK Government work with the devolved Administrations to ensure the effective implementation of the ban. We can all agree that this pollution needs to be tackled. To date, international co-ordination and most of the funding for research in the UK has been provided by the EU marine strategy framework directive. It would be good to hear the Minister provide further reassurances that that funding, research and international co-operation will continue after the UK leaves the EU.

In the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into the environmental impact of microplastics, it heard that environmental non-governmental organisations such as Flora & Fauna International have been left to lead efforts to monitor the presence of microbeads in consumer products. No statutory funding for that work is available, but the demand for it is increasing, leading to an unsustainable situation. What assurances can the Minister give us that funding will be available to provide the services required to enforce her proposed ban? Finally, although we welcome the action being taken by the UK Government, I would be grateful if the Minister looked at making the ban better by taking a consistent approach to the elimination of microplastics from all formulations.