Global Plastics Treaty

Deirdre Costigan Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Global Plastics Treaty.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time available for this debate, and for allocating the debate to the main Chamber. That is an important signal that the House is in political consensus on the issue, and we attach a great deal of importance to that. I thank those Members who supported the application for the debate to the Backbench Business Committee, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage). She has a long and distinguished record of campaigning on this issue, but is unfortunately unable to be here.

I also express my appreciation for the support of the various campaigners—organisations and individuals—who have kept this issue in the public consciousness for so long, not always in the easiest of circumstances. At this turn of the wheel, I particularly thank Greenpeace UK for the assistance of its campaigner Rudy Schulkind, but in the past, I had a private Member’s Bill on the subject, and that was supported by a whole range of organisations, from the women’s institute through to Friends of the Earth. We have to call that a broad-based consensus.

This debate is timely. The next round of talks on the UN global plastics treaty will be held in Geneva between 5 and 14 August. The Government, I am happy to acknowledge, have a good story to tell, and in fairness, they inherited the record of the previous Government, who also accorded some political importance to this issue. The message I want the Chamber to send today is that the Government have to do all that they can—not just in presenting the UK case, but in supporting others.

For those of us who, like me, come from island and coastal communities, the growth of plastic pollution has been obvious for years. Ahead of this debate, I got an email just a couple of days ago from a constituent of mine, Jim Chalmers, who said:

“I can remember as a child beachcombing around the south end of Stronsay, and coming across the occasional unfamiliar plastic bottle and being intrigued by its novelty. It might have been an empty washing-up liquid bottle of a kind unknown in our household or even had words in a foreign language.”

Fast-forward to 2025, and the position is very different on the beaches of the Orkney and Shetland coastline, and right around the coastline of all European countries. Even when we go out on a beach that looks pretty clear and pristine, if we start picking up the small pieces of plastic, 10 or 15 minutes later, we have a carrier bag full of them.

In Orkney and Shetland, we have a great range of community initiatives to tackle this issue. In Orkney, we have the “bag the bruck” campaign every year. In Shetland, we have Da Voar Redd Up. Despite the community effort and people taking responsibility for stretches of coastline and picking up the rubbish, weeks later, it is as if almost nobody had ever been there. The tipping point for public consciousness on this issue was the “Blue Planet” series by Sir David Attenborough a few years ago. That created sufficient public pressure, so that in 2022, there was a decision by 175 countries to develop an internationally legally binding instrument to address the problem of plastic pollution. That matters on so many levels, and it is why the word “global” is central to the treaty.

Plastics as an industry emits more carbon than the entire global aviation and shipping industries. The question we should ask ourselves is: what exactly does “good” look like at the conclusion of the talks in Geneva? I cannot improve on the fine summary in the briefing from the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace ahead of today’s debate. They state that we should be looking for:

“A global target to reduce production of primary plastic polymers and related elements such as reporting and national measures.”

Reducing production is critical; I will return to that in a minute or two. They also call for a

“Clear and legally binding obligation to phase out the most harmful plastic products and chemicals of concern in plastics…A binding obligation to improve the design of plastic products and ensure they cause minimum environmental impact and safeguard human health, including supporting reuse…Provision of ambitious finance (‘effective means of implementation’) in particular for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States”.

Finally, they call for:

“Using regular UN procedures for decision-making if all efforts at consensus have been exhausted”.

If we can achieve something along those lines in Geneva, we will have some cause for optimism.

[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He has outlined the important global action that we need to take on plastics. Does he agree that this Government’s action to bring forward a deposit return scheme will help address some of these issues? It will ensure that we can recycle plastics, and that will take them off the streets and beaches, where they are ending up.

[Mr Carmichael]

Yes, if it is a properly constructed, nationwide deposit return scheme. The experience in Scotland was, shall we say, not everything that it might have been. A properly constructed scheme will be critical. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), on the Front Bench, and I know she has a tremendous personal commitment to this issue. This is about creating a circular economy. I know there is a genuine commitment to that in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and a deposit return scheme would very much sit within that.

We talk about such measures being somehow in conflict with business. Importantly, the fundamental truth is that the best opportunity for business comes from having a circular economy. We can make not just an environmental and social case for that, but a business case.

Ensuring that the treaty has the strongest possible reduction targets will be absolutely critical. That is where the contention has arisen in previous rounds of talks, and we can anticipate that the same arguments will be rehearsed. The most important point to address, however, is the idea that somehow the whole thing will be fixed by recycling and that we can just keep producing virgin plastics at an exponential rate. We reckon that the current exceptionally high levels will treble by 2060 if we do not do anything to arrest the increase.

We cannot manage to fix it all by recycling, and the people who advance that idea—particularly those who work for the big plastic companies and the petrochemical companies—are downright disingenuous. Given the vast number of different plastics that are available and the different polymer combinations, they know just how difficult it is to actually recycle plastic. This country has a good record on collecting plastic for recycling, but the truth of the matter is that we recycle very little of it. We export a horrible amount of it—I think we exported 598 million kilograms for recycling in 2024. Of course, once it is exported, we do not know if it gets recycled or not, and we completely lose control of it. Then we have the growth of incineration. The number of incinerators has grown from 38 to 52 in the last five years alone, driven by the growth in plastics. I am afraid the idea that recycling alone is going to be the silver bullet will not lead to the meaningful reductions that we know we need, so we need a cap on production.

We also understand that one of the biggest barriers in Geneva is going to be the role of the plastics industry itself. It is exceptionally well resourced, and it is rooted downstream of the oil and gas industry. Personally, I am pragmatic about the use of oil and gas. Until we have other technologies that can take its place, it is foolish to push our oil and gas industry off the shelf, but I am afraid I see little to commend in its behaviour. Had the industry’s representatives all come as one delegation to the last round of talks in Korea, it would have been the largest delegation at the talks. I am pleased to say that the UK delegation is the gold standard in this space. It is well resourced, and is well informed by scientific advisers, but that is not a cause for complacency or smugness. We have to see that it gives us an opportunity to help and support others.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which I chair, took evidence on the global plastics treaty just last week, on 8 July, and some of what I heard was genuinely shocking. Professor Richard Thompson OBE, who is a fellow of the Royal Society and a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth, said:

“Moreover, scientists I work with have been threatened on UN premises as part of these negotiations. Almost what I would consider a fundamental right to science and to access science is being denied. It particularly falls on some of the smaller nations. DEFRA is very well blessed in that it can afford to send a big delegation of highly trained scientists, which is fantastic, but they stand alongside small island developing nations, which perhaps only have one individual there. The need for a science mechanism is actually mandated in UNEA 5/14, and we need it really urgently to address this issue.”

It was one of those moments when I had to stop and say, “Just a second, did you say what I thought you said there?” Even after we had explained to him his position as an eminent scientist giving evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, with all the protection of privilege, he was not comfortable calling out in detail what is happening.

The fact of the matter is that we know that it is happening. If we are to get this treaty across the line, UK needs to be robust not just in presenting our own case, but in supporting and protecting those who are less fortunate than we are: the small island nations, the campaigners and the scientists who are there on their own finance. My final ask is that there should be a ministerial presence at the negotiations in Geneva, which would be a really important signal that the Government could send about the seriousness of their intent.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you said I would speak for 15 minutes and I think I have had 14, so I will return to the email that I got from Jim Chalmers. He went on to say:

“I’m sure I have a reputation as that weird guy that carries a bag with him when he’s out with the dog, picking up litter (I call it recyclates). However, I know fine I’m urinating into the wind”

—he did not actually say “urinating”—

“as I have no control whatsoever over the source of the stuff and the forces that encourage and permit its growing release. I appreciate that the 17th of this month is not a good time for you to be away from Orkney”

—there is never a good time to be away from Orkney—

“but if you can somehow bring any influence to bear, I would feel my efforts aren’t totally in vain.”

It is for people like my constituent Mr Chalmers and his likes right across this country that we are here today. We pin our hopes and their hopes on the efforts of the Government and like-minded countries to get the treaty that we know we need and that our planet deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. The business of our standards being very different is one we should look at first. These notes plainly need to be looked at, and we will have to go about some international negotiations to try to improve standards elsewhere. The UK has high recycling standards internationally, but it is not acceptable to simply offshore the problem, which does not serve any of us well.

Not only is plastic waste a hazard to people, but it is killing seabirds, as well as hundreds of thousands of sea mammals, turtles and fish, and it is having a devastating impact on our environment more broadly.

[Deirdre Costigan]

Does the hon. Member agree that the Government’s banning of disposable plastic vapes is another way we can help reduce this plastic waste?

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. I voted in favour of that initiative when it came before us, and the banning of disposable plastic vapes was very welcome.

Too much waste still ends up in incinerators. Sometimes, what we think will be repurposed or recycled is in fact burned. The number of incinerators in the UK has risen from 38 to 52 in the last five years. This is the dirtiest form of energy production, releasing more greenhouse gases than any other method.

While my constituents may have been enjoying their ice creams at Seaton or walking the south-west coast path during the recent heatwave, these hotter summers are a stark reminder of our collective failure to tackle climate change. If we can increase the amount of plastic we reuse and create the circular economy that my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, we can use less disposable plastic and less single-use plastic, and therefore reduce carbon emissions.

Germany is the leading recycler of municipal waste in the European Union, which is partly down to its deposit refund scheme. Recycling rates on plastic bottles have reached an outstanding 98% in Germany. I have to acknowledge that it is thanks to the measures the Government introduced in January that a deposit return scheme for plastic and metal containers will go live in the UK in 2027. This scheme, which will offer a small refund for returning bottles and cans in the UK, is a practical step towards reusing plastic.

Although national action is welcome, we need to match our own UK action with international action, and the UK can be a real leader in this space. We can press for our ambition to be matched by other countries in the global plastics treaty negotiations. We must push for legally binding targets to reduce plastic production elsewhere, not just voluntary pledges. We offshore a lot of our production—including to China, which accounts for 40% of the world’s plastic production. We know that the carbon emissions produced as a result are staggering, and we must do something about them. If the Government are serious about deepening ties with Beijing, they must also be serious about holding it to account, and that starts with applying pressure at the global plastics treaty negotiations next month.

As we know, the US President has never been a great advocate for tackling climate change or reducing plastic waste. He made that abundantly clear in his attention-seeking stunt in February, when he proudly brought back plastic straws. At the heads of delegation meeting earlier this month, the US backtracked on its previous position. It walked away from earlier commitments on control measures and financing, and came out firmly against plastic production caps. The Prime Minister has explicitly cited family values as a foundation of his strong relationship with the US President. Could the Minister urge the Prime Minister to leverage that personal connection, and ask the President to consider not just global leadership, but the world that his own family will inherit? We have to consider young people in this picture, and for that we will need serious and concrete commitments at the global plastics treaty negotiations.