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 increase plastic reprocessing in the UK.

In the recently published Resources and Waste Strategy, the Government stated its ambition to further improve domestic reprocessing, and committed to several policies to help stimulate investment in UK reprocessing capacity and improve competitiveness. These policies, subject to consultation, include: implementing extended producer responsibility for various waste streams; introducing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers; raising recycling targets for plastic and other types of packaging; implementing a tax on plastic packaging with less than 30% recycled content; and exploring options to ensure fair competition for all reprocessors, including tighter monitoring and enforcement of waste exports.