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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Simpler Recycling policy takes into account the expectations of consumers about what happens to items they send for recycling.

In October 2020, we amended the Environmental (England and Wales) Permitting Regulations 2016 to include a permit condition for landfill and incineration operators, meaning they cannot accept separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic for landfill or incineration unless it has gone through some form of treatment process first and is the best environmental outcome.

Under the Environment Act 2021, recyclable household waste must be collected separately from other household waste and must be collected for recycling or composting.