Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

Our 25-year environment plan, published last year, committed us to being the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. In line with that, the plan includes a commitment to ensure that resources are used more efficiently and kept in use for longer, in order to minimise waste and reduce its environmental impacts by promoting reuse, remanufacturing and recycling. This is explored further in our resources and waste strategy, which I note several Members welcomed and which was published in December. The strategy sets out how we will preserve our stock of material resources by minimising use, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy.

A central element of the resources and waste strategy is a core set of principles that will act as a framework for reviewing our existing producer responsibility schemes and developing new ones. These include producers bearing the full cost of managing their products at the end of their life in line with the “polluter pays” principle; and using modulated fees or other measures to encourage producers to make more sustainable design, production and purchasing decisions. In accordance with those principles, we made a commitment to reform the current packaging producer responsibility system as an immediate priority, and in February we published a consultation on how we propose to do that. We are consulting jointly with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as our preference is to continue with a UK-wide approach to packaging producer responsibility. But, of course, it has been open to any devolved Administration to develop their own regulations and their own new systems if that is what they wish to do.

Why do we want to reform the current packaging producer responsibility system? In the current regime, packaging producers are obligated to provide evidence that they have met their share of annual packaging recycling targets, which they purchase from accredited re-processors and exporters of packaging waste. As the hon. Lady pointed out, this is a market-based system, and it has succeeded in ensuring that the UK has met its wider packaging recycling targets at the lowest possible costs to producers and, therefore, to consumers. The UK has reported to Eurostat that 64.3% of UK packaging waste was recycled in 2018, surpassing the 55% total recycling target set within the European directive. However, the Government recognise that the current system does not sufficiently incentivise design for greater reuse or recyclability, and that less than a tenth of the costs of managing household packaging waste is covered by producers.

In the consultation our proposals tie together the broader set of principles for extended producer responsibility and our ambitions for the packaging sector going forward. These include the reduction of unnecessary packaging, the reduction or elimination of materials that are difficult to recycle and the increased recycling of packaging. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) referred to elements of black plastic being involved, but plenty of black plastic is perfectly recyclable. A particular brand called carbon black plastic is trickier to do that with, which is why the industry is working, under our guidance and also with the Waste and Resources Action Programme, to produce further designs, and we are seeing significant changes happening on that already. There are reasons why certain kinds of black plastic will be used, often in ready meals and other kinds of meals: they simply will not melt when they are heated, whereas other sorts of plastics may be easier to recycle on the initial phase but do not fulfil the purpose for which they are intended.

A key proposal is that producers of packaging waste that comes from households and similar packaging waste from commercial and public sector outlets should cover the full net cost of managing their packaging at its end of life. Our definition of full net cost includes: collecting and transporting household or household-like packaging waste for recycling; sorting and treatment of household or household-like packaging waste, where required, for recycling—the income obtained from the sale of recyclable materials would be netted off—treating or disposing of any packaging disposed of in the residual waste stream; providing information to consumers on recycling packaging waste and anti-littering; clean-up of littered and fly-tipped packaging items; and the collection, collation and reporting of relevant packaging and waste management data, including litter and fly-tipping.

The consultation seeks views on two alternative approaches to incentivise producers to make better design choices: modulated placed-on-the-market fees, where producers pay more if their packaging cannot be recycled readily or is difficult to recycle, and less if their packaging is readily recyclable; or a deposit fee, where producers pay a deposit which is redeemable if they are able to prove that the equivalent of the packaging that they have placed on the market has been recycled.

The consultation asks which producers should pay for the cost of managing the packaging at the end of its life. Should producer responsibility be shared across the packaging chain, or should there be a single point of compliance where 100% of the producer responsibility obligation is placed on one business? The consultation also seeks views on how producer fees should be spent to improve infrastructure and increase recycling, including payments to local authorities and councils, and a mandatory UK-wide labelling scheme that provides clear information to help consumers recycle.

The consultation document therefore includes a proposal that producers would label their packaging with wording to the effect of “Recyclable” or “Not Recyclable”. We are consulting on proposed new packaging waste recycling targets for 2025 and 2030. Those are broken down into targets for specific packaging materials and for total packaging recycling. We are seeking views on four options for governance of the reformed packaging producer responsibility system. One option includes having competitive compliance schemes with oversight provided by a central board. A second option, similar to that suggested by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), is based on a single market organisation. A third option is a hybrid version of the first two. The fourth option involves a single market organisation to manage a deposit return scheme.

Finally, we are seeking views on proposals for ensuring that packaging waste exports are managed fairly and responsibly, and for how a reformed system can be more transparent and the changes to the current compliance monitoring and enforcement regime ensure that a reformed system operates fairly, transparently and to reduce the opportunity for fraud. The consultation closes on 13 May. As of last Friday, we had received 73 responses, and I expect many more to come in. We will carefully review them, and we intend to hold further consultation on our final recommendations in early 2020.

The hon. Lady’s speech took 22 minutes, unfortunately, if understandably, because many of her hon. Friends intervened, so it is difficult for me to answer several of the points made. She will, however, be aware that we absolutely can come up with the proposed new system while working together as the four Administrations. It will be a significant change that I believe will lead to great additions to improving the opportunities for recycling and the circular economy.

As the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) has said, the 30% recycling tax mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor could be a game-changer. The problems of plastic and packaging elsewhere, in particular in export markets, were referred to. Our biggest export to China for waste is through paper. I am conscious of the changes that have happened to plastic and paper, but other markets have appeared. It stimulates the opportunity for secondary markets to develop further in this country.

On the litter that ends up in the marine conservation areas that we all cherish, I want to place it on the record that I was delighted that the Prime Minister asked me to present a Points of Light award to Jason Alexander recently for his work on improving littering and bringing that issue to wider attention. It is also Great British Spring Clean Month, Mr Speaker, and I am sure that you have been out in Buckingham, working with people there. We should pay tribute to the litter heroes.

I assure the hon. Member for Cardiff North that we are working on the proposals, as she recognised. I am confident that together, across the House and indeed across the UK, we can bring those elements to reality.

Question put and agreed to.