Consumers: Environment Protection

(asked on 17th November 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to encourage consumers to make more environmentally friendly purchase decisions.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 23rd November 2020

The Government is committed to encouraging consumers to make more environmentally friendly purchasing decisions.

In the Resources and Waste Strategy (2018), we committed to incentivise consumers to purchase sustainably, provide consumers with better information on the sustainability of their purchases, and to ban the most problematic plastic products.

The single-use plastic carrier bag charge has been successful in reducing usage by 95% in the main supermarkets to date. Accordingly, we will, from next year, increase the charge to 10p, and extend it to all retailers. We introduced a ban on polluting microbeads in personal care products and have also introduced restrictions from October 2020 on the supply of plastic straws, cotton buds and drink stirrers.

We are also seeking powers in our landmark Environment Bill to charge for single-use plastic items, and to introduce requirements for improved labelling and consumer information focused on the resource efficiency of products, for example their repairability and durability and on how to dispose of products at end of life.

We also want to increase the sustainability of the food sector. The UK will work with leading food service sector representatives to develop and consult upon a Sustainable Food Service Sector Action Plan to be published in 2021 and delivered throughout 2022, which will provide information to associations, member companies, customers, and end users on issues relating to forest risk commodities.

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