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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the levels of waste associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has not been collecting data specifically on covid-related waste – waste classifications are determined by content rather than context. These figures are published on a regular basis.

We have been working closely with the local authorities and the waste industry to monitor the impact of the pandemic on their services. We have run a regular survey on the impacts of COVID-19 on local authority waste operations, including on levels of waste, the output of which can be found at www.adeptnet.org.uk. We also collected informal data through industry discussions and internal surveys across a range of areas such as waste arisings and throughputs.