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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of the provision of drinking water fountains on reducing the use of single-use plastic water bottles in the last 10 years.

The Government has not conducted a specific assessment of the effect of the provision of drinking water fountains on reducing the use of single-use plastic water bottles.

The Government recognises the importance of making drinking water more readily available in public places, as a means of reducing single-use plastic bottles. The Resources and Waste Strategy for England, published in December 2018, sets out the Government’s plans to reduce, reuse, and recycle more plastic than we do now. Our target is to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste throughout the life of the 25 Year Environment Plan, but for the most problematic plastics we are going faster - which is why we commit to work towards all plastic packaging placed on the market being recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.

To help combat the improper disposal and littering of drinks containers, including single-use plastic water bottles, the Government committed, in its 2019 manifesto, to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers subject to further evidence and analysis. The aim of a DRS for drinks containers is to increase recycling and reduce the littering of such containers.

The Government is committed to supporting water companies, high street retailers, coffee shops and transport hubs to offer new refill points for people to top-up water bottles for free in every major city and town in England. The water industry is developing a network of refill points through its Refill app, managed by City to Sea. The app signposts to over 30,000 free refill points and is estimated to have saved over 100 million single use bottles from entering our waste stream in 2019.