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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce (a) single-use and (b) other plastic waste.

In December 2018, the UK Government published its Resources and Waste Strategy. This sets out how we will achieve a circular economy for plastic and achieve our ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042.

Our goal is to maximise resource efficiency and minimise waste to keep plastic in circulation for longer by following the principles of the waste hierarchy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. One way will do this is by making producers more responsible for the plastic they make with our incoming Collection and Packaging Reforms.

Single-use plastics are a particularly problematic type of plastic that makes up much of our waste. We have introduced bans, including most recently in October 2023, on the supply of many unnecessary single-use plastic items. To tackle the use of virgin plastics, the Government brought in the Plastic Packaging Tax in April 2022.

Internationally, the UK is a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition, a group of over 60 countries calling for an ambitious and effective UN Treaty to end plastic pollution. At the current round of negotiations in Canada, we are continuing to support a treaty that will address the full lifecycle of plastic to tackle the problem of plastic pollution globally, including through designing out waste and supporting a circular economy for plastic.