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 monitor inconsistencies between local authorities in the recycling of plant pots (excluding black plant pots), following the introduction of legislation for simpler recycling; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure compliance with the requirement to collect these items.

Part 4 of Schedule 1 to The Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2024 provides a list of plastics which are included in the recyclable plastic waste stream.

This includes PE, PET and PP pots which are larger than 40x40mm and do not contain any pigment which prevents them from being near-infrared detectable (e.g. carbon black pigment) within the plastic recyclable waste stream.

Defra engages regularly with local authority networks and will raise this matter with them, so they can communicate directly with their members about the legal requirement to collect this material.

We know that some local authorities are still to roll out changes beyond 31 March 2026 due to circumstances beyond their control, such as delivery timescales for collection vehicles and containers. In such circumstances, we expect local authorities to be taking all necessary steps to progress and keep their residents informed on timeframes for service changes.

We continue to work with local authority waste networks and the wider industry, providing targeted support to address the outstanding issues.