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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her Department’s policies of the Surfers Against Sewage’s Citizen Science Brand Audit 2022.

No assessment has been made of the implications of Defra policies in relation to Surfers Against Sewage's Citizen Science Brand Audit 2022. However, we have already made significant progress that aligns with their recommendations, introducing one of the world's toughest bans on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products and brought in measures to restrict the supply of plastic straws, plastic drink stirrers, and plastic-stemmed cotton buds in October 2020. The use of single-use carrier bags has been reduced in the main supermarkets by over 97% with our five, now ten, pence charge. We are going further and have consulted on a ban of single-use plastic plates, cutlery, balloon sticks and expanded and extruded polystyrene food and beverage containers.

Where we can reduce unnecessary packaging and incentivise more recyclable materials, we will do so. That is why we will introduce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging from 2024, moving the cost of dealing with packaging waste from households away from local taxpayers and councils and onto the packaging producers. This will encourage businesses to think carefully about how much packaging they use, to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and encourage use of reusable and refillable packaging. Our plans to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers is expected to deter littering; increase recycling; provide higher quality recyclate for reprocessors; and drive changes in consumer behaviour.