Microplastics: Marine Environment

(asked on 7th February 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 her Department is taking to prevent micro plastics from entering the sea.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 17th February 2020

Microplastics, pieces of plastic smaller than 5mm, can fragment from larger items or be intentionally produced. Our aim is to prevent plastic pollution at its source and develop a circular economy approach to plastic.

In 2018, we launched one of the world’s toughest bans on the sale and manufacture of microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, helping to prevent billions of tiny plastic pieces from entering the ocean every year.

Pre-production plastic pellets are a major source of microplastics. Current estimates put the number of pellets lost during the production of plastic in the UK between 5 billion and 53 billion. We have been engaging with industry to encourage businesses to do more, including signing up to Operation Clean Sweep, to prevent plastic pellet loss.

To address evidence gaps from other sources of microplastics we have commissioned:

  1. A study from the University of Plymouth to investigate the sources and pathways of microplastics from tyres and textiles into the marine environment.
  2. A Rapid Evidence Assessment by Defra on “Analysis, Prevalence and Impact of Microplastics in Freshwater and Estuarine Environment”.

These reports will be published this year and the evidence will help us continue to develop policies to tackle the problem.

Reticulating Splines