Circular Economy and Elimination of Waste

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a really important point. The UK is fully signed up to meeting the UN sustainable development goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail level by 2030. Our resource and waste strategy committed us to better redistributing food to those in need before it gets thrown away, and we have put £15 million into that. We are consulting on mandatory food waste prevention targets for businesses and publishing a food surplus and waste hierarchy to support businesses to prevent food waste. Around 3 million tonnes of waste has been prevented since 2013 and, of that, around 2.7 million tonnes is food waste.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I was appalled to find that on leaving the EU, the UK will be exporting our plastic waste to third world countries, where it will be burned, releasing toxins into the atmosphere. I understand that countries receiving our toxic waste have the option to refuse it. Can the Minister reassure us that not only will he encourage his colleagues to ban the export of plastic waste, but he will campaign rigorously to reduce plastic waste to zero?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness has my commitment on both points. We recognise the problems of waste mountains in numerous countries that cannot or do not manage their waste properly. The Government have already committed to banning the export of plastic waste to countries that are not members of the OECD. In addition, the entire thrust of the Environment Bill that I mentioned earlier is designed to reduce all avoidable and unnecessary waste.