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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the volume of non-recyclable plastic produced in the UK in each of the last five years.

Defra has not made an estimate of the volume of non-recyclable plastic produced in the UK.

It is not possible to reliably estimate the volume of non-recyclable plastic sent to landfill, because large tonnages of landfilled waste are reported as “mixed” waste categories for which we do not have up to date waste composition data to derive estimates for plastic.

The main source of plastic waste arisings in the UK, however, is packaging which accounted for around 60% of total plastics arisings in 2014. From information collected under producer responsibility obligations for packaging, the recycling rate for UK plastic packaging is around 40%.