Plastic: Recycling

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am a unionist and therefore, wherever things are going well, wherever it is in the country, I am delighted. I have looked into this. In Wales a lot of the recycling percentage—it comes down to weight—is down to the fact that it has done far more food and garden waste recycling. That is why it has a higher recycling rate: 58% compared with 44.9% in England. I am very pleased that there is success in Wales on that. We certainly want to improve that, but there are plenty of local authorities in England with recycling rates of over 60% and I congratulate all local authorities that are recycling, whether it is plastic, food or other materials.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, with respect to marine pollution, will my noble friend also take a look at the issue of PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls—and in particular at the work of Paul Jepson of the Zoological Society of London? He concluded that, although PCBs were banned in the 1980s, they are still getting into European seas and are responsible for the fact that the resident pod of killer whales has not been able to have babies around the British Isles for many years.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I take that very seriously indeed. It is fair to say in marine and across the piece that international collaboration is key. Whether it is the G7, the G20, the UN, OSPAR—