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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to study the effect of plastic and litter contamination of UK river basins on local biodiversity.

The Government focuses on preventing litter from entering rivers and the sea by reducing it at source.

Through the waste hierarchy, we seek to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place and to encourage greater reuse and recycling of goods and materials. The Waste Prevention Programme for England, published in December last year, sets out actions for government, businesses, the wider public sector, civil society and consumers to prevent waste.

Where litter is found on waterside land, the responsibility for rectifying it depends on the ownership and management arrangements. The responsibility for removing litter may fall on local authorities, appropriate Crown authorities, designated statutory undertakers and the governing bodies of educational institutions. All of these bodies have a statutory duty to keep specified land clear of litter and refuse. The Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse recommends that canals and waterside areas should be subject to regular and systematic management and monitoring of litter and refuse.

Investment by the water companies to improve sewerage infrastructure has resulted in a significant reduction in sewage-related litter entering rivers and the sea through screening of discharges and improvements to sewage treatment.

We welcome work such as that done by Keep Britain Tidy and Anglian Water through their RiverCare programme to engage local communities in clearing litter, removing non-native species, surveying and monitoring flora and fauna and carrying out habitat management and restoration in their local rivers.

Defra will shortly be consulting on a programme of measures, including for marine litter, as part of the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The UK is contributing to the OSPAR convention’s regional action plan on marine litter in the north-east Atlantic.

Defra has not undertaken any recent studies into the effect of plastic and litter contamination on rivers; however, Defra is funding a study into the possible effects of microplastics in the marine environment.