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 plans to take to increase domestic recycling capacity.

The 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy sets out the Government's ambitions for increased resource efficiency and a more circular economy in England. These ambitions require changes in how we produce and consume products and materials, as well as how we treat and dispose of them at end-of-life.

In the Resources and Waste Strategy, we have committed to taking actions which will help to stimulate private investment in reprocessing and recycling infrastructure. The Collection and Packaging Reforms (Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (EPR), consistency and a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)) are expected to increase and incentivise appetite for commercial infrastructure investment, giving investors greater confidence in the growing UK reprocessing market. Our ambition to recycle 65% of municipal waste and reduce waste to landfill to no more than 10% will help to drive investment. Also, the HMT plastic packaging tax is expected to increase demand for secondary material plastic and increasing reprocessing infrastructure will help meet this demand.

Further capacity is likely to be required if the UK was to reprocess domestically the increased levels of packaging material expected to be captured for recycling as a result of the reforms.

We are already seeing a response from the sector to increase reprocessing capacity.
Defra is also working with other departments (e.g. BEIS and DIT) and the waste sector to highlight the investment opportunities that result from the reforms.