Richard Fuller MP

words from

Richard Fuller, MP for North East Bedfordshire

This month is “Plastic Free July” – a global movement to reduce our plastic waste.

By now, most of us are aware that plastic can wreak havoc on our marine environment and degrade our most precious habitats for centuries. It is important that we find ways to tackle this manmade, and easily avoided, problem and begin the process of clearing the damage already caused.

By 2017, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic had been manufactured – equivalent to the weight of 25,000 buildings the size of the Empire State Building in New York. Without action to cut demand, it is estimated this will grow to 34 billion tonnes of plastic by 2050: more than 4 times the current level.

The government’s “Resources and Waste Strategy for England” sets out our nation’s plans to reduce, reuse, and recycle more plastic than we do now. The overall target is to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste over the life of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.

For the eight most problematic plastics, such as disposable plastic cutlery, polystyrene packaging, cotton buds and stirrers, we are going faster and have committed to work towards replacing these with recyclable, reusable or compostable equivalents by 2025.

To keep products in circulation for longer, the government is also taking steps through the Environment Bill to require products to be designed to be durable, repairable, and recyclable, as well as legislating for the use of extended producer responsibility schemes in a way that incentivises more resource efficient design.

These are important early steps towards creating a fully circular economy where we know what we use, where it goes and plan progressively to eliminate all avoidable waste through the supply and consumption chain.

The Environment Bill also includes powers to enable other commitments to implement a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers and the introduction of consistent recycling collections across the country.

Next year, the government will also be introducing the Plastic Packaging Tax, paid by manufacturers and importers of plastic packaging that contains less than 30 per cent recycled plastic.

All these measures build on the microbeads ban and the plastic bag charge which was first introduced in 2015 which has successfully prevented billions of plastic bags being sold and ending up in the ocean and environment.

The government is taking bold action to tackle our plastic usage and waste but the best solution to the problem of plastics is a combined and sustained effort by all of us.

There are small steps we can all take to reduce our plastic waste and I would encourage you to get involved and visit www.plasticfreejuly.org for ideas on small ways in which you can take up the challenge.