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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to incentivise producers of packaging to use recycled plastic in their products.

The UK’s Packaging Waste Regulations impose obligations on large producers to fund the recycling of a proportion of the packaging waste that arises in line with their market share. We have made great progress in boosting recycling rates and making more products recyclable – including doubling the recycling of plastic packaging waste over the last thirteen years – but there is still much more to be done.

Tackling waste, especially waste plastic, is a key priority for the Government. The Clean Growth Strategy, published on 12 October 2017, commits us to move towards zero avoidable waste by 2050 and announced that we are exploring changes to the packaging producer responsibility scheme. This will look at all aspects of the regime, including mechanisms to incentivise better design, encourage the use of recycled material and provide greater transparency for producer funding.

More detail will be announced in the Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published later this year.