EFRA Select Committee Report: Plastic Waste Inquiry

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee have published a report on their inquiry into plastic waste. This report recommends that the government bans the export of plastic waste by the end of 2027. It states that to achieve this ban the UK needs to reduce the amount of plastic waste it produces, move away from the ‘use and dispose’ linear economy and increase domestic capacity.

In order to achieve this ambition the report calls on the government to:

• Prioritise efforts to reduce the volume of waste and increase the amount of plastic which is reused rather than recycled
• Accelerate the roll-out of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging. EPR would also be extended to all businesses putting 1 tonne of packaging on the market
• By March 2024 EPR to encourage businesses to adopt reuse and refill models.  A taskforce should also be created to make reuse and refill model
• Confirm support for plastic packaging tax
• Report calls for government to work with industry to unlock up to £1 billion of private investment in domestic plastic reprocessing infrastructure. Government should use its infrastructure roadmap, due later this year, to identify key areas of government and private investment
• Reinvest income from EPR and the Plastic Packaging Tax into recycling infrastructure and promising areas of future research

For more information, please see the report here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/31509/documents/176742/default/