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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of the new study by the Five Gyres Institute published in the journal Plos One on 8 March, concerning the increase in the amount of microplastic in the world’s oceans in the past 15 years; and what steps they will take, with international partners, in response to that report.

Marine litter, including microplastics, is one of the greatest environmental challenges we are currently facing, reiterated by the new study by the Five Gyres Institute. Whilst we have not yet made an assessment of the findings of this latest study, we will continue to draw from a wide range of evidence and assessments to develop our policy, including any new research, enabling us to take the best possible action domestically, regionally and internationally to tackle the issue of marine microplastics and improve our understanding of their sources, pathways, impacts, distribution and abundance.

Domestically, we are working to prevent plastic from entering the environment in the first place by eliminating the most problematic plastics; we have already banned microbeads in rinse-off personal care products and we have funded research to examine wider sources of microplastics, including tyres and textiles. This research will help to inform future policy.

As a Contracting Party to the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, the UK participates in monitoring programmes to assess regional trends in marine litter. Technical experts from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) have been leading an expert group to develop a new indicator for microlitter (including microplastics) in seafloor sediments, which could be used in future to inform regional policy.

The UK is a leading voice in tackling marine plastic pollution, co-sponsoring the proposal to prepare a new international, legally binding plastics treaty and taking an ambitious stance at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC1) in November last year. At INC1, the UK supported a treaty that will restrain the production and consumption of plastic to sustainable levels, address plastic design and encourage more recycling and re-use of plastic, in order to end plastic pollution, including microplastic pollution.