Plastic Recycling Targets

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville for securing this debate and for highlighting in her very powerful speech the incredibly detrimental effects of plastic in the environment. As she says, successive UK Governments have failed to grasp the plastics issue with the urgency it actually needs.

However, I will start my intervention today with encouragement to the Government, and some congratulations at least for their ongoing efforts as regards the UN global plastics treaty. The Minister will know that the UN global plastics treaty has been in negotiations since 2022, and that it would be a game-changer. It is the first ever attempt to create a dedicated, legally binding plastics treaty.

In March 2022, the UN Environment Assembly agreed to develop the legally binding global agreement on plastics, covering the full life cycle, from production to disposal. The problem is that the negotiations are ongoing. The treaty is expected to include targets on ocean plastic pollution, microplastics, product standards and the reduction of single-use plastics, but whether it is adopted depends on overcoming the major sticking points. I would be very grateful if the Minister could say where he understands the negotiations are now.

The Minister in the other place, Emma Hardy, said:

“I’m hugely disappointed that an agreement wasn’t reached, but am extremely proud of the way the UK has worked tirelessly until the end”,


of that round of negotiations,

“to seek an ambitious and effective treaty”.

My question to the Minister is: what efforts is the UK making now to ensure those negotiations are still continuing? Would he agree that it is actually the fossil fuel producers that did not want to see that treaty succeed? This is for the very reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, alluded to—as fuel is phased out for transport use, they are finding other markets for their product. Until we can overcome that, the plastics treaty, which is so crucial, is not going to move forward.

Given this opportunity today, I must mention a plastics problem closer to our shores that really requires the Government’s urgent attention and some decisions from Ministers: the problem highlighted by the recent bio-beads spill at Camber Sands. However, that is by no means is the first disaster of this nature; I recall an incident near Truro, in Cornwall, some years ago. I declare an interest as someone who uses the beaches in the south-west a great deal, as do my family, and we enjoy them.

The bio-beads in question facilitate sewage treatment. It is perhaps ironic that the very things that treat sewage have ended up polluting the sea and the beaches to such a terrible degree. Surfers Against Sewage, to whom I pay tribute for their ongoing campaigning on all sorts of issues, explained the bio-beads issue. Once released, bio-beads behaved like any other microplastic and can be ingested by fish, seabirds and shellfish. They enter the food chain, carry harmful pollutants on their surface and pose health risks to humans.

There are modern alternatives, such as activated sludge systems. I am not going to go into those now, but the fact is that those systems have not been universally adopted. I understand that there are big costs implications. For example, South West Water still has eight plants that use bio-beads. Understandably, the Government have encouraged the water companies to focus on sewage overflows, which have been polluting our rivers and seas so harmfully, but the issue of how that sewage is treated simply has not been addressed. It is about not just the capacity of the sewage system but the sort of system that it is. That needs to be given more government attention.

In April 2025, the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission reached agreement on a long-awaited EU regulation to prevent plastic pellet losses into the environment, because, of course, they are a major source of microplastics pollution. That would address not only bio-beads but nurdles, which are the building blocks of plastic. That is how plastic gets shipped around before it gets made into whatever it is going to be made into. There have been some horrendous spills of nurdles at sea.

The EU has passed this regulation but, post-Brexit, we in the UK will not benefit from it. My question to the Minister is: what plans do the Government have to address nurdles and bio-beads? Will they introduce some similar regulation here so that these plastics are no longer wreaking havoc in our oceans?