MAY’S NEW PLASTIC CRUSADE
PM in dramatic pledge to ban ALL plastic cotton buds, straws and drink stirrers
A TOTAL ban on plastic cotton buds, straws and drink stirrers will be announced by Theresa May today.
Declaring war on our throwaway culture, the Prime Minister will unveil measures to protect the oceans. ‘We are clogging up one of the Earth’s greatest natural resources with harmful plastic and – for the sake of this and future generations – we must take action now,’ she writes in today’s Daily Mail.
She also praises this newspaper’s Great Plastic Pick Up campaign, which has seen 4,000 readers sign up for 200 community litter clearing events next month.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove has been pushing for plastic straws to be outlawed. But today’s announcement goes much further by extending the ban to cotton buds and stirrers.
Ministers believe this would be more effective than trying to change consumer behaviour through taxation.
The Treasury will still press on
with plans for levies on other single-use plastic items, such as cups, bottles and packaging.
Sources said there was no reason why businesses could not switch to biodegradable alternatives, such as paper straws, wooden drink stirrers and paper-stemmed buds.
The Government said it would consult with industry and give firms ‘sufficient time to adapt’ before imposing the ban, which is unlikely to come into force until next year.
Mrs May says 12million tons of plastic were being dumped in the oceans each year – contributing to changes that were ‘fundamentally altering key marine ecosystems’.
Mr Gove said: ‘Single-use plastics are a scourge on our seas and lethal to our precious environment and wildlife so it is vital we act now. We have already banned harmful microbeads and cut plastic bag use, and now we want to take action on straws, stirrers and cotton buds to help protect our marine life. We’ve already seen a number of retailers, bars and restaurants stepping up to the plate and cutting plastic use.
‘However it’s only through government, businesses and the public working together that we will protect our environment for the next generation.
‘We all have a role to play in turning the tide on plastic.’
The plastic ban will apply only in England initially. But ministers hope to extend it across the country by working with counterparts in Wales and Scotland, which has already announced plans for a cotton bud ban.
The ban could have a significant impact on marine waste.
A recent study found that 8.5billion plastic straws are thrown away each year in the UK.
A separate survey revealed that an average of 27 cotton buds are washed up for every 100 metres of beach in this country.
The BBC’s landmark Blue Planet series featured the heartbreaking story of an albatross chick killed by a plastic toothpick dumped in the ocean.
Today’s announcement comes
‘We all have a role to play’
as Mrs May opens the Commonwealth heads of government summit in London, where tackling pollution is a top agenda item. She described the summit of 53 nations as a ‘unique opportunity’ to drive action globally.
Seven countries have already joined the UK in forming a Commonwealth Clean oceans Alliance, including Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Ghana, Kenya, Vanuatu and Fiji. The new organisation is committed to preventing waste and cleaning up plastic pollution in the seas.
The UK announced more than £60million in funding this week to help Commonwealth countries tackle the plastic menace.
Government sources said the stunning success of the 5p charge on plastic bags showed there was support among both the public and business for action on the issue, provided the Government gave a lead. online takeaway firm deliveroo says use of plastic cutlery on food orders had dropped by 91 per cent in a month after it offered an opt-in system.
Last night ministers were accused of a ‘lack of urgency’ over the issue after Mr Gove told MPs a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles might not be introduced until 2020.
Last month he announced plans for a scheme under which consumers pay a deposit on drinks bottles and cans which is repaid when they hand them in for recycling.
The move aims to boost recycling rates and cut litter, and comes amid increasing concern over the issue of single-use plastic, much of which ends up as waste.
But yesterday he told MPs that legislation was unlikely to come forward until next year and come into force only the following year.
Mary Creagh, who chairs the cross-party environmental audit committee, said: ‘It is disappointing that having announced the deposit return scheme last year, the Government will not be bringing this vital part of tackling plastic waste until 2020 at the earliest.’
TRUST Jeremy Corbyn to turn a bad day for the Government over the Windrush scandal into a disastrous day for himself. Bristling with indignation, he snarled across the despatch box: ‘Yesterday we learned that in 2010, the Home Office destroyed the landing cards for a generation of Commonwealth citizens… Did the Prime Minister, then the Home Secretary, sign off that decision?’
He thought he’d landed a killer blow. But Mrs May had a simple answer: ‘No, the decision to destroy the landing cards was taken in 2009 under a Labour Government.’ Cue Mr Corbyn’s collapse.
Yet though the Prime Minister emerged victorious from yesterday’s exchanges, there is no denying the Home Office was guilty of serious failings on her watch.
Those failings have been compounded under her successor, Miss Rudd. And, no, there is no truth in the scurrilous suggestion by the BBC’s Nick Robinson that Brexit-supporting papers attack her merely because she backs Remain (what volumes that speaks about BBC bias!).
As the Mail reveals today, the department found in 2015 that changes to immigration rules would unfairly affect some groups with every right to be here. That warning was repeated by MPs in January. Yet nobody acted on it – and the Windrush generation went on suffering, while Romanian gangsters and others gained leave to remain here without trouble.
To their credit, Mrs May and Miss Rudd have at last woken up to the monstrous illtreatment of Commonwealth migrants who answered the mother country’s call to help with post-war reconstruction.
Is it too much to hope officials will now concentrate their bureaucratic fire on chancers with no right to be here – and accord taxpayers of decades’ standing the respect and gratitude they’re due? AS thousands rally to the Mail’s Great Plastic Pick Up, we welcome Mrs May’s plan to add cotton buds, stirrers and drinking straws to the lengthening list of banned plastic pollutants. An unstoppable momentum is building up to leave a cleaner, greener planet to our grandchildren. The more who join us, the sooner that dream will be realised.