Plastics Recycling

Vince Cable Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered plastics recycling.

I am grateful for the opportunity to lead an environmental debate after an environmental weekend. I was lucky enough to be part of the Opposition leaders’ meeting with Greta Thunberg this morning, which reminded us all that there is a world beyond Brexit.

I want to narrow the discussion to the issue of plastics recycling. I know it is well-trodden territory in many ways. In the past 20 years, a whole body of British legislation and policy has been built on the waste directive. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has four consultations in varying stages of completion. We will no doubt touch on some of those issues. There is also a great deal of very good documentation, including the excellent paper from the Library on plastic waste.

I acknowledge from the outset that the issue is superficially simple, but actually extremely complex. There are many different kinds of plastic, each with different approaches with different costs and benefits. There are many useful and necessary applications. For example, there is an enormous distinction between macroplastics and microplastics. The macroplastics that we talk about in public debate include plastic bottles. Microplastics are built into such things as our clothing and the wear of tyres, and may have even bigger environmental impacts.

I approach the subject from three different directions. First, like many Members, I have been lobbied, through vast numbers of letters, by local schoolchildren about the issues to do with plastics in the ocean. They asked me to raise the issue in Parliament, which I am now doing. In many cases, they were highly motivated by seeing the David Attenborough series, “The Blue Planet”. Those arguments have been well rehearsed and I do not need to develop them.

In researching for today, I found some of the facts—perhaps we should call them factoids—surrounding the subject very striking. One was that while plastics are generally very light and buoyant, we are heading to a situation where the weight of plastics in the ocean will soon exceed the total weight of fish. Even more strikingly —it is authoritative, because it came out of a Government press release—every year, the ingestion of plastics by fish and entanglement result in the loss of a million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals. That is extraordinary. Children have every reason to be very exercised.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman agree—it is 25 years this year since I started the environmental organisation, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association—that we consistently have to go right back to the manufacture of plastics? I beg him to meet Professor Steve Evans at the institute for sustainable manufacture at Cambridge University. Changing what we manufacture is at the heart of a long-term resolution.

[Sir Vince Cable]

I would be delighted to meet the professor, if he is happy to meet me. The hon. Gentleman is right that we are often looking at the wrong end of the process. We should be looking at the origins.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman on his speech thus far. Picking up on that point on manufacturing, will he join me in congratulating Capital Valley Plastics in my constituency? It uses waste plastic as the raw material for its final product. That raw material would otherwise end up in landfill or the oceans.

[Sir Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right that that is a constructive response to the problem. If more manufacturers were like his, the economy in plastics would be in a much healthier state. I will come in a moment to some of the reasons why that company is one of the relatively few that are succeeding. It is extremely important none the less.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the packaging manufacturing industry. We have already spoken about manufacturing. Manufacturers take an entirely responsible attitude to plastic; it is people putting plastic in the wrong place that gives rise to the problem. The industry has a target of having zero to landfill by 2030, and has made great steps to get to 78% now. Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge the efforts that the industry is making to do the right thing and to avoid waste getting into the wrong place?

[Sir Vince Cable]

I acknowledge the will of the industry, but there is a lot of bad practice and a lot of products that are unnecessary and are produced in ways that do not help. I fully acknowledge that a lot of manufacturers are responsible, and I am sure they are the people with whom the hon. Gentleman is engaging.

The second direction from which I am approaching this matter is in relation to the global warming controversy, which we have been debating over the weekend. Plastics have a somewhat ambiguous role here. They save on air miles and other forms of transport because they are relatively light materials—I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s manufacturers would make that point—but they are also hydrocarbons, so their manufacture and disposal add to global warming gases.

When looking at the material, I found little clarity about the net effect. There is speculation that in 2050, which is the end of our national statutory period for targets, we could have between 15% and 30% of the carbon allowance dedicated to plastic use. I do not know what the answer is. It would be helpful if DEFRA and the Minister commissioned a study, or brought together the studies that have been done, on the impact of plastics on global warming, because the area is ambiguous.

The third reason I secured this debate is that this is the time of year when I, like other colleagues, go to visit other constituencies in the context of local elections. This year I have noticed a particular interest in environmental issues and recycling in local elections. Councils are rightly trying to up their game and avoid the penalties associated with waste disposal.

The situation in my borough brings out some of the dilemmas. It is effective in recycling: it recycles 95% of bottles, cardboard, paper and cans, but it recycles only 50% of plastics. There are some inherent problems, such as food contamination, which clogs up machinery, is very bad for the people who have to do the picking and attracts vermin. Many members of the public do not seem to appreciate that it is difficult to deal with. In the case of many plastics—this goes back to an earlier intervention—the manufacturers do not appear to appreciate that, for technical reasons in the manufacture, their product is non-recyclable. A little example is the devices we use for cleaning fluid: the bottles can be recycled, but the gadgets at the top to squeeze out the fluid cannot. The black plastics used in a lot of carry-out food cannot be recycled. Most people are not aware of that, and there is clearly a major public education task involved. Perhaps the Government should be focusing rather more on that.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

When I have gone around talking to various councils, one thing that has come back—notwithstanding what has been said in the debate—is that there need to be changes to packaging waste regulations. Does the right hon. Gentleman have an idea of what those changes might be? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) said, it is not about the good manufacturers, but the bad manufacturers and how we deal with them.

[Sir Vince Cable]

For a start, it would help if we had a properly, clearly defined hierarchy of plastic products. Some are clearly necessary, highly desirable and beneficial, while others are utterly trivial, wasteful and costly to the environment. If that hierarchy was clearly established by scientific inquiry and promoted by Government, that would be helpful to local authorities.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the simple economic fact that if the cost and price of plastic were higher, less would be consumed and produced? It is therefore incumbent on the Government to introduce a tax system on plastic that differentiates between less recyclable versus more recyclable plastics, bans the worst and taxes the less bad—or taxes them all—so that people move to more cost-effective, sustainable alternatives.

[Sir Vince Cable]

That is right; it is basic market principles allied to the environment. The Government announced in last year’s Budget that they would proceed with that. There is a consultation, which we will no doubt hear more about from the Minister.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on from that very good answer to that very good suggestion, may I suggest that real waste experts—people who know about plastics and waste—say, “Make waste valuable and it will be recycled.” If there is no money and no reward for picking it up and recycling it, we are on to a loser. Greta Thunberg wants action now. Can we not make waste valuable quickly?

[Sir Vince Cable]

That is correct, but with one qualification: it also makes the export of waste valuable. I will come back to the particular problem associated with that in a moment.

In the short time that I have, I will put three specific issues to the Minister. The first concerns data, which has already been raised by the Environmental Audit Committee. There are vast disparities in the numbers that make it very difficult to make sense of what is happening. To cite a few examples, I think the official figures are that 1.5 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated every year in the UK. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that it is about 5 million tonnes, and Economia, which does consultancy in this area, estimates that it is about 3 million to 4 million tonnes. Perhaps they are using different definitions, but we need clarity, because at the moment there is wild variation.

That also applies to what is being achieved in terms of recycling and waste disposal. I understand that the official figures are that 91% of waste is either recycled or recovered in other ways—the definition of recovery includes incineration and export—and only 9% goes to landfill. However, again, the World Wildlife Fund has wildly different numbers. It suggests that 48% goes to landfill, 20% to 30% is recycled, and 22% is used as an energy source. I do not know why there is that difference. Again, it may be a definitional question, but some clear and unambiguous statement from the Government about the position would be very helpful.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently visited Clean Tech in Lincolnshire, which is the largest recycler of PET—polyethylene terephthalate—in the UK. Clean Tech’s representatives showed me their bales of plastic, inside which they find such things as bowling balls and car engines. They showed me the bales of plastic in France, and they were clean. They all said that when they go to buy the plastic, they are often outbid, and the plastic is then exported. We need to clean up our plastic, and then ban the export of plastic waste. Clean Tech said that it could recycle every piece of PET in the UK, but not at the moment, because the system is broken. Should we not ban the export of plastic?

[Sir Vince Cable]

That is exactly the issue that I am getting on to. As it happens, I think I visited the hon. Gentleman’s waste plant when I was Secretary of State, so I have some recollection of it. It was a progressive development, but it has the anomalies that he describes.

My second question relates directly to that intervention; it is about the role of exports. We have somewhat flattering statistics that suggest that Britain is meeting, and indeed exceeding, the European waste objective—I believe that 48% is recycled. The definition of recycling does not equate to reprocessing. There are vast differences, and according to the National Audit Office, half of all products that are described as recycled are exported. Quite apart from the question that one might raise about the quality of the treatment in the countries to which such products are exported, there is a serious problem about what we are doing in this country, and in particular how we will respond to the closing of doors in China.

I think China now bans waste imports, and I believe that Malaysia has indicated that it is doing the same. If that is increasingly the pattern in the more developed of the emerging economies in Asia, where will this stuff go? Are we looking for cheap and nasty disposal in Africa, or will it be stocked and dealt with here, and if so, how? To deal with it involves incentives and support for the reprocessing industry—not just recycling, but reprocessing. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) pointed out, that requires tax, because at the moment it is unattractive to reprocess. It is much more profitable to export. There will have to be a tax on the finished plastic products, which will have to be fairly substantial to level the playing field.

I ask the Minister what the Government have analysed the effect of the Chinese border closure to be. What impact will that have on the recycling and reprocessing industries, and how rapid an adjustment will we have to make to the closing of international markets?

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. Does the issue that he has just raised not bring a wider and more important principle into the debate? Just as with energy production, the Government are beginning to meet targets through interconnectors and looking at importing renewable energy, perhaps from Denmark and elsewhere. Part of the issue is that the Government are potentially meeting recycling targets artificially by exporting goods, when we do not know that they are being recycled in the way that we would like them to be. That is not really in the spirit of addressing our carbon reduction targets as well as I hope that all of us in the Chamber would want.

[Sir Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I do not think that the Government are necessarily being disingenuous; it just happens to be that the way that recycling is treated has not traditionally distinguished between domestic processing and export. I hope that the Minister will explain how the Government are trying to redress that.

This is a relatively short debate, so I want to give others an opportunity to speak. My final point relates to how we deal with end-use consumption. Two of the Government’s consultations are about that, but I think it is useful for Members to express a view at this stage. One obvious area is the plastic bag experience. We had a massive impact—an 88% reduction in demand—as a result of quite a modest 5p charge on bags. However, at the moment it is restricted to firms with more than 250 employees. I understand the reasoning; the Government do not want to expand the regulation to single-handed shopkeepers. However, there is surely a number in between—say five employees and above—that would be much more realistic and have a significant impact.

The second potential action, which the Government again are consulting on, is introducing deposits for bottles. One of the reasons the German experience in this area is so much better than the British experience is that the Germans have, in effect, a 20p tax on plastic bottles, which can be refunded, giving people a strong incentive to reuse as well as recycle.

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

As kids, we used to collect bottles. Bellshill Nisa in my area collects plastic bottles and refunds money to charities. Perhaps the Minister could take that up. Kids could pick up plastic bottles, take them back to the local shop and receive money for them.

[Sir Vince Cable]

I am sure that the Minister will have an answer to that, since the Government are consulting at the moment. There is a whole variety of creative initiatives one could explore, such as installing water fountains or just encouraging people to fill their bottles with tap water, but it requires a change of culture as well as an economic levy.

In considering the issues, the Government have a following wind in public opinion. A very good survey by YouGov last week suggested that about 80% of the public are comfortable with the idea of an extra charge on plastic bottles, around 70% are comfortable with the idea of extending the plastic bag tax, and a large majority are willing to pay something like £2 a week more on £100-worth of groceries. For many hard-pressed households, that is not an inconsiderable sum, and one has to be sensitive to issues of family poverty. However, the majority of public opinion seems to be reconciled to the idea that to reduce plastic usage, there will have to be additional charges.

In conclusion, let me point out that the Government have a rather modest long-term objective of working towards eliminating unnecessary plastic use—I think that is the phrase they use—by 2042. In that year, I will be waiting for my 100th birthday card from Buckingham Palace. I suggest that if that objective were brought forward to, say, 2025, we would be dealing with a more realistic timescale. I look forward to hearing what colleagues have to say.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Vince Cable]

I do not have a great deal to add in the last 30 seconds. We all understand the chemistry, and the technology is given. The Government’s objectives are very clear, and there is a great deal of consensus around them. The main area of disagreement is about the urgency and pace at which this is being done. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has a Bill to introduce a foreshortened timetable for dealing with unnecessary waste. I very much hope that through that or the Government’s action, we will speed up the measures that we all agree need to be taken.