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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to help make it easier to recycle packaging waste.

Following support at public consultation, the Environment Act 2021 introduced new requirements for all local authorities in England to make arrangements for a core set of materials to be collected for recycling from all households: paper and card; plastic; glass; metal; food waste and garden waste. All businesses in England must make ar-rangements to recycle the same set of recyclable materials, with the exception of garden waste. In 2021 we consulted on the detail of this policy, including implemen-tation dates and materials in scope of collection – we will publish a consultation re-sponse shortly.

Additionally, we intend to increase the amount of packaging that can be recycled. By March 2027, the government will require the collection of plastic film packaging for recycling from all households and businesses.

To make recycling easier, packaging producers will be required to label packaging as ‘Recycle’ or ‘Do Not Recycle’ adopting a single label format which incorporates the Recycle Now symbol. All primary and shipment packaging (except for plastic films and flexibles) will be required to be labelled by 31 March 2026. An additional year will be permitted for plastic films and flexibles (31st March 2027) to align with the re-quirement for local authorities and businesses to have recycling collections in place for these materials.