Compost: Plastics

(asked on 19th July 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of compostable plastics on reducing the plastic contamination of (a) soil and (b) the sea.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 27th July 2021

Ideally we want to tackle litter of all kinds, including plastics, to stop them from being released in the natural environment in the first place. Furthermore, when littered in the open environment, compostable plastics will typically behave similarly to conventional plastics. Indeed, a plastic product that is designed to degrade or disintegrate more rapidly may accelerate the production of microplastic fragments. This is because the existing standard that applies to industrial composting, BS EN 13432, is only effective if the compostable plastic is collected and sent to an appropriate treatment facility.

Therefore, until the appropriate infrastructure is in place across the country to accept compostable plastics, the government's preference is that they are used in closed loop systems where no reusable or recyclable options are available; and with appropriate collection and disposal arrangements in place. We recommend that businesses consult available guidance and evidence summaries on this to help assess if this may be the case for their intended purpose. In accordance with the waste hierarchy, our current preference remains that most plastics are reusable or recyclable.

As set out in our response to the call for evidence on Standards for bio-based, biodegradable, and compostable plastics, published in April 2021, we want to ensure that innovation in the plastics industry continues but it is vital to ensure that new materials really are more sustainable than conventional plastics and other alternatives. As already highlighted, concerns persist that plastics which are claimed to be biodegradable, if littered or otherwise released into the environment in an uncontrolled way, may not degrade quickly or even at all.

The Government has invested nearly £100 million into research and innovation to tackle the issues that arise from plastic waste. £20 million was set aside through the Plastics Research and Innovation Fund, the last funding competition of which opened in June 2020. The Resource Action Fund included £10 million specifically to pioneer innovative approaches to boosting recycling and reducing litter. The Government has also announced £60 million of funding through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, alongside a £150 million investment from industry, towards the development of smart, sustainable plastic packaging (SSPP), which will aim to make the UK a world leader in sustainable packaging for consumer products. Two SSPP funding opportunities have been open for bids in 2021: the SSPP Demonstrator Round 2 and the SSPP business-led research and development competition.

Additionally, the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge funded by the Government has recently invested £20 million into four plastic reprocessing facilities in the UK to support the development of new technologies to recycle plastic waste. These projects will increase domestic reprocessing capacity. Three of these projects include the development of chemical recycling plants which turn plastic waste back into oil which can be used to replace virgin oil for use in new plastic products.

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