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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a complete waste export ban to help reduce the UK's contribution to the global plastics crisis.

Waste is a commodity which is traded on a legitimate global market. Where the UK cannot currently recycle materials economically, exports can help enable more materials to be recycled rather than landfilled or incinerated.

The Government therefore has no plans to assess the merits of a complete waste export ban.

Recognising the difficulties experienced by some countries in managing imports of plastic waste, the Government stated its ambition to ban exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries in its manifesto. The Government has committed to consult on this measure and work is underway to make this happen. Defra has commissioned research to gain a better understanding of the plastic waste recycling capacity in the UK and OECD member countries and this research will be key to the development of policy options to implement the manifesto commitment. The Environment Bill will enable us to deliver on this commitment and we currently plan to consult before the end of 2022 on options to deliver the proposed ban. The Bill also allows us to introduce mandatory electronic tracking of waste to help tackle waste crime here in the UK and prevent illegal waste from being shipped abroad.