Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to improve consumer education on using compostable packaging.

The Government recognises that innovation into biodegradable and compostable packaging could help reduce the environmental impacts of packaging if it is disposed of in the right way. However, currently this is often not the case. If biodegradable packaging is put in the domestic waste bin, for example, it is likely to end up in landfill and can break down to release powerful greenhouse gases, such as methane. If biodegradable plastic is mistakenly recycled with other plastics, it has the potential to damage the quality of the new products made from the recycled plastic.

As a consequence of these concerns, the Government published a call for evidence in July 2019 to help consider the development of standards or certification criteria for all bio-based, biodegradable, and compostable plastics to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system. As we develop our proposals to reform the packaging producer responsibility system we will consider the role of composting, informed by the outputs of this work.

Building on commitments in the Resources and Waste Strategy we launched a consultation earlier this year on reforming the packaging producer responsibility system, which proposed a mandatory UK-wide labelling system that provides clear information to help people to recycle. Defra officials are exploring how a mandatory labelling scheme can address consumer confusion about what to do with compostable packaging. We will take primary powers in the Environment Bill to enable us to implement a mandatory labelling scheme. The consultation closed on 13 May and the summary of responses and next steps can be found via the below link: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/packaging-waste-changing-the-uk-producer-responsibility-system-for-packaging-waste