Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to increase domestic recycling of waste produced in the UK which had previously been exported abroad.

Waste should be treated according to the waste hierarchy, which places prevention at the top as it offers the best outcome for the environment, followed by preparing for re-use, recycling, other recovery and then disposal.

China’s decision underlines the need for progress in all these areas. We must reduce the amount of waste we produce overall and in particular the amount we export to be dealt with elsewhere. In our 25 Year Environment we outlined that we will develop our producer responsibility schemes, to better incentivise producers to design more resource efficient products and to ensure we recycle as much as possible.