Disposable Cups Ban

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I am not going cup-less anytime soon. In terms of water refill, the noble Lord is absolutely right. He will know about the City to Sea initiative, which is an app for your phone. There are water fountains in airports, train stations, retailers and coffee shops. These are the sorts of initiatives that we should be focusing on; indeed, it is funded by the water industry.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of Lotte Chemical UK Ltd, which manufacturers PET on Teesside for water and soft drinks bottles. It is not practical to phase out disposable cups or bottles completely, but I understand that the industry is capable of undertaking a much larger volume of recycling of single-use plastics. Is my noble friend aware that the major obstacle to this is that many councils are not yet capable of collecting and processing the material for industry to recycle in sufficient scale?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his question. In fact, 88% of all local authorities now recycle the most widely recycled materials, including plastic bottles. Obviously, there is much more to be done; many other types of plastics cannot currently be recycled. We are, for example, looking at black plastic and working with the industry. We expect a sustainable recycling system to be in place by the end of 2018.