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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the opinion issued by the European Chemicals Agency on 30 October 2018 that they were not convinced that microplastics are formed by oxo-biodegradable plastic.

In January 2017, the European Commission asked the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to prepare an Annex XV restriction dossier concerning the placing on the market and use of oxo-degradable plastics. However, ECHA withdrew its intention to prepare the dossier in May 2019, on request from the European Commission, following the inclusion of oxo-degradable plastics in the Single-Use Plastics Directive.

This information can be found at: https://echa.europa.eu/registry-of-restriction-intentions/-/dislist/details/0b0236e18244d9bb.

This decision was a matter for the European Commission and it would not be appropriate to comment on an investigation which was not completed.