Unsustainable Packaging

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for his excellent speech introducing the debate. As he says, the public determination to deal with the scourge of plastic packaging is overwhelming, and MPs and the Government need to take heed of those concerns and act now.

I also thank all hon. Members who spoke and intervened, and I am delighted that there is a high level of agreement across parties on the issue. I will pick out a few points. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) said that any recycling solutions we introduce need to fit with local authority capabilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) mentioned that there is no point trying to prevent plastic pollution in this country if we do not manage to prevent it in other countries and in their oceans.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), in his substantial speech, made the strong point that we can reduce plastic packaging—that that is eminently achievable—but that we need to ensure that the correct plastics are treated in the correct way. He also made the case for a coherent national system, a case with which I very much agree. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) pointed out the importance of enabling communities to combat plastic litter. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said that we need to recognise the difference between items for which plastic packaging is unnecessary and those for which it is a sensible solution, and the importance of ensuring that compostable plastic really is compostable.

The petition calls for an end to non-recyclable and unsustainable food packaging, and goes on to call for a 100% recycling rate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge made the point that it is not enough to call for packaging to be recyclable—it has actually to be recycled. Virtually every form of waste could be recycled if the public were able to separate it out, the local authorities were able to collect it, the plant were there to process it, and the manufacturers were willing to use the resulting recyclate rather than cheap raw materials. Some materials are clearly far more easily recycled than others, and when materials can be and are being recycled people need to know that.

[Mrs Main]

Thinking about my Appspond Lane heap of wood, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there has to be a market, some incentivisation to use the recycled goods? Otherwise, they become a valueless commodity; they might be recycled but no one wants them.

[Sandy Martin]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. That is clearly an important part of the entire recycling cycle.

There is no point allowing manufacturers to claim that a package is recyclable when they know that the facilities do not exist, and even less so when the cost of doing so would be ridiculously prohibitive. For instance, it is theoretically possible to recycle the traditional crisp packet, but I believe it currently costs more to recycle it, taking into account the collection costs, than the original cost with the crisps in it. The Government’s strategy paper “Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England” acknowledges that to a certain extent, but it still refers to targets for making packaging recyclable, so my first ask of the Minister is whether the Government will measure recyclability in future by whether the material is actually recycled, or simply on the basis of a theoretical claim by industry?

My second ask of the Minister is whether the Government will consider a graduated tax on plastic packaging, rather than a flat-rate tax on that which contains less than 30% recyclate. Many manufacturers are already pledging to move well beyond 30% recycled packaging, and I would submit that any regulation that aims to persuade people to do less than they are already doing voluntarily is either pointless or window dressing. Major multinational companies, such as SC Johnson, the American cleaning products company that makes the Ecover brand among others, are already aiming for high percentages of recycled material in all their packaging, and it would be a travesty if the 30% flat rate allowed other less ambitious companies to undercut their prices simply because the tax regime did not incentivise higher rates.

The plastics packaging industry makes various claims trying to minimise the perception of its impact. Plastics do not make up the majority of waste, measured by weight, but neither the climate change impact nor the pollution impact of waste is dependent on weight. Yes, of course, we want a sustainable solution for construction hardcore, but the environmental impact of a tonne of inert mixed rubble is negligible in comparison with the enormous problem that would be represented by a tonne of polystyrene foam or polythene bags.

The feedstock for most plastics is still fossil fuel, and the absolute necessity eventually to bring to an end the consumption of fresh fossil fuels, if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, must include an end to the use of fossil fuels to create plastics as well. The industry proudly insists that 78% of plastics are currently recovered, but that mainly refers to recovery through incineration in energy-from-waste plants. The exact efficiency of the electricity generation varies from plant to plant, and depends on the mix of waste being incinerated, but we can be sure that plastic incinerated in an energy-from-waste plant will generate significantly less electricity than the oil it was made from would have done in a conventional oil-fired power station.

We do not use oil-fired power stations any more, as a rule, because of their unsustainable climate change implications. How much more unsustainable is it to incinerate plastic in an energy-from-waste plant? My third ask of the Minister is whether the Government have any plans to ensure that the proposed extended producer responsibility for packaging production will simply be allowed to subsidise more energy-from-waste plants, or whether they have any plans to ensure that the money is used to incentivise recycling instead?

As the petition makes clear, the public want to be able to recycle their packaging, but the best way to deal with unwanted plastic waste is to not create it in the first place. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned all sorts of imaginative ways in which mainly small retailers are avoiding the use of plastic packaging, all of which are laudable. However, we need a consistent, across-the-board step change in the way we purchase goods, the way packaging is designed, the materials it is designed from, and the way it is dealt with at end of life. Only a coherent national strategy from Government can achieve that, so my final ask of the Minister is this: will he pledge to ensure that all the good intentions, suggested actions, aims and targets in “Our waste, our resources” are pursued, accelerated where possible, and not shoved into the long grass under the next Prime Minister?

Dealing with our waste will be a crucial part of our ability to deal with the environment and climate emergency that we face. We need to reduce the amount of waste we create, and to reuse our packaging wherever possible and recycle or compost what is left, if we are to achieve zero net emissions by 2050 or stand any chance of maintaining any quality of life on our planet, for ourselves or any other creatures.