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 adequacy of sorting machines at recycling centres and their ability to distinguish between pieces of paper and flat pieces of plastic.

The Government has not carried out such an assessment. Well-managed sorting facilities are generally able to distinguish and sort paper and plastics effectively. The most recent data published on materials recycling facilities sorting shows that 97.9% of material sorted as paper in England in the third quarter of 2018 was target material, meaning just 2.1% was contamination, such as plastic.