Food and drink firms face plastic tax to fund recycling
‘Do more to tackle the scourge’
SUPERMARKETS, food producers and drinks firms could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of pounds a year to pay for plastic waste to be recycled.
In a victory for the Mail’s Turn The Tide On Plastics campaign, Environment Secretary Michael Gove is expected to announce major reforms designed to combat ‘the scourge’ of plastic waste pollution within weeks.
The long-awaited Government strategy will make plastic producers cover more of the cost of processing resulting waste, and could raise up to £1billion.
This will go towards paying councils for the cost of recycling, which is funded by the taxpayer at the moment. It could also be used to fund research to discover new ways of processing waste, as well as investment in plastic processing facilities.
A source close to Mr Gove said: ‘Michael has been absolutely clear we want to do more to tackle the scourge of plastics.’
Plastic producers pay just £70million a year towards the cost of collecting and recycling the 11million tons of packaging waste produced in the UK.
To discourage the use of nonrecyclable plastic, manufacturers will be able to recover a significant part of the cost if their packaging is successfully recycled.
Much of the UK’s discarded plastic used to be sent to China for recycling. But in January, the government in Beijing stopped taking it, leaving the UK waste industry was in chaos.
The cost of recycling has increased after town halls turned to other countries to find destinations for their waste. Some councils told householders to put plastic items such as yogurt pots and plastic trays in the bin. The Local Government Association, which represents councils, said some of its members had seen their recycling costs increase by £500,000.
Around two-thirds of plastic waste is exported, with the rest reprocessed in the UK. The National Audit Office said this was a ‘comfortable way for government to meet targets without facing up to the underlying recycling issues’.
However, Phil Conran, the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Packaging, told The Guardian: ‘Those retailers and manufacturers that are engaging in this accept that costs will significantly increase.
‘Many of them are used to much higher costs in other states any- way, so they know it is inevitable. The system has never been about long-term sustainability – just about meeting each year’s [recycling] targets at lowest cost.’
Nestle UK, which markets Nescafe, KitKat and San Pellegrino water, welcomed the decision.
A spokesman said: ‘We support any changes that will bring about a well-functioning, consistent waste collection and recycling scheme, and particularly one that will help to stimulate a circular economy for packaging within the UK.’
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: ‘While recycling rates have increased significantly, we want to ensure producers take greater responsibility for the environmental impact of their products, starting with packaging.’
In his Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged to tax firms that manufacture or import plastic less than 30 per cent recycled. He said this would encourage food and drink firms to reduce their dependence on plastics that are too difficult to recycle.