Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

I will call Dame Nia Griffith to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered extended producer responsibility for packaging.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I share with many, including the Minister, I am sure, a huge concern about the amount of plastic and packaging waste that is never collected or recycled and that ends up in landfill, in our seas or in incinerators, thus polluting our land, sea and air. We are all aware of the hierarchy of waste—reduce, reuse, recycle—and the challenges that it poses. It is vital that we tackle waste and increase recycling, including through legislation and the extended producer responsibility guidance, but the scheme must be well designed so that it incentivises appropriate behaviours. I have every sympathy with the Minister: that is not an easy task.

I can understand, too, if there is some criticism of, or perhaps cynicism about, the concerns voiced by industry, because of course industry is bound to be concerned by any new tax imposed on it. However, there is general support in industry for the “producer pays” principle. Industry wants a system that is fair, and I share its serious concerns about some of the unintended consequences of the scheme. The Food and Drink Federation says the industry has significant concerns that the proposed system will fail to achieve improvements in recycling rates, and is calling on the Department to be more ambitious in its proposals by adopting international best practice from the most successful schemes around the world.

Before addressing more general points, let me share my concerns about how the current proposals will affect Wiltshire Farm Foods, which provides ready-made meals in plastic trays that are covered with a thin polythene film. It delivers those meals to householders who can then put them in their freezers and heat them up when they need them. Customers receive regular deliveries from Wiltshire Farm Foods to their doorsteps. The company saw that as an opportunity for its delivery staff to collect the used trays when they arrive with a fresh delivery. For good measure, it also reuses the cardboard boxes that the trays are carried in.

Wiltshire Farm Foods’ customer base is made up predominantly of a generation who are used to washing and putting out the milk bottles on the doorstep. Their conscientious washing and storing of the used trays enables the company to make the collections. The company does not used a cardboard sleeve, although one is commonly found on similar products. The necessary information is put on the plastic film, which is the only thing left for the customer to dispose of. Wiltshire Farm Foods leaves behind 97% less packaging by weight than other ready meal brands because the customers return the trays.

In late 2021, the company went one step further. It made a significant investment in a world-leading packaging recycling initiative in its factory in Durham. Through its award-winning “boomerang” project, it now takes the used plastic CPET—crystalline polyethylene terephthalate —meal trays and genuinely recycles them by making them into new trays. The composition of the new trays is up to 85% recycled tray material. That should be recognised as a significant achievement because it is much more challenging to recycle plastics than metal and glass, which can be recycled through the use of well-established technologies.

In establishing the facility in Durham, Wiltshire Farm Foods has also onshored the process. It both keeps jobs here and reduces plastic miles. It is genuine closed-loop recycling and an exemplar approach to the recycling and reuse of packaging. It puts the company ahead of the legislation. Can we find a way to refine the proposed legislation to recognise that? We must give credit where credit is due.