Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups

Debate between Victoria Prentis and Mary Creagh

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I emphatically agree. I remember the happy days of collecting those bottles. In doing that, we can create an army of litter pickers out in the streets. I was out in Norway with NATO last week, visiting the Arctic, and there is a full deposit return scheme there. One of the people we talked to told us that his son had made £580 in the holidays last summer by going on a little mission out on the streets every day. I also noticed, when I was at the airport disposing of my single-use plastic bottle in the throwaway scheme, that the deposit would be collected by the Red Cross in Norway. There is an opportunity here for charities to partner alongside the deposit return scheme and to find a valuable new income stream.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I am going slightly off the point here, but the hon. Lady mentioned airports. Does she agree that one thing that is little understood is that people are allowed to take their refillable containers to the airport? There are often places to refill them there, but people do not seem to be aware of that fact.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I know that Heathrow has introduced refill stations just the other side of the security gates, but the problem is that people are usually already in the queue for security before they remember that they have a full bottle of water. Most people cannot drink half a litre of water straight off. Airports could look at how to dispose of those liquids while encouraging people to keep the bottles. That would result in more reuse. That is a challenge for the airports and the transport industry to think about today.

Reducing and reusing are always better than recycling, and the 5p plastic bag charge reduced plastic bag sales by 83% in the first year, so we know that charges change consumer behaviour. My Committee recommended a 25p latte levy on disposable coffee cups to encourage people to bring their own cups. We want that levy to fund new “binfrastructure”. That is terrible; I am trying not to murder the English language, but I think I have just stuck a nail in there. The Chancellor is consulting on a single-use plastics tax, and I look forward to reading the responses. The consultation closes tomorrow.

Industry is stepping up to this; it knows that it cannot go on with business as usual. Costa has introduced a recycling scheme that aims to recycle half a billion cups by 2020. Unfortunately, only 14 million cups were recycled last year, but that was a good start. Starbucks is trialling a 5p latte levy in 35 central London cafés, and reusable cup usage has more than doubled in the first six weeks, which is very encouraging. The truth is, however, that we need both. We need the latte levy and we need recycling schemes if we are to tackle this problem.