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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will hold discussions with Ministers of the Department for International Trade on the finding that plastic packaging and bags from seven of the top 10 UK supermarkets have been found at multiple sites across south-west Turkey as set out in Greenpeace’s report, Trashed: how the UK is still dumping plastic waste on the rest of the world, published in May 2021; and if he will make a statement.

It is illegal to export waste from the UK to be dumped or burned overseas. Under the UK legislation on waste shipments, businesses involved in the export of wastes are required to take all necessary steps to ensure that the waste they ship is managed in an environmentally sound manner throughout its shipment and during its recycling. The Environment Agency (EA), as the competent authority for waste shipments for England, has been proactively engaging with the authorities in Turkey on the issue of illegal plastic waste exports over the past year. The Environment Agency has liaised with Greenpeace, following their recent report, in order to seek information which could assist them with their compliance monitoring and enforcement of waste exports to Turkey.

All waste exports need to be made in accordance with the relevant legislation and the UK regulators have a system of inspections in place to verify compliance under the waste exports and packaging regimes respectively. Over the last 12 months, monitoring by the Environment Agency (EA) has had a particular focus on preventing illegal plastic waste exports. In 2020, the EA prevented the illegal export of 46 shipping containers of plastic waste to Turkey, this year they have already prevented the illegal export of 122 containers of plastic waste to Turkey. The EA also currently has four active investigations into illegal waste exports to Turkey. The Environment Agency (EA) has developed a good relationship with the Turkish Ministry of Environment, who have expressed their thanks for the UK’s collaborative approach in preventing illegal exports of waste to Turkey. Turkey has now banned the import of most plastic wastes.

The UK government has pledged to introduce tougher controls on illegal waste exports, and the Environment Bill includes a power to introduce mandatory electronic tracking of waste which will make it harder for criminals to obtain and export waste illegally. We plan to launch a consultation on this in the Autumn.

Within this context, Defra is working with the Department for International Trade on supporting the development of more plastic processing infrastructure within the UK to reduce the need to export these materials to other countries, such as Turkey. The Government is also committed to a bringing forward a ban on plastic exports to non-OECD countries.