Coffee cup tax lined up in Budget

Takeaway boxes, straws and coffee cups face being ‘taxed’ in a similar way to plastic bags after the UK government pledged to take the lead in cleaning up the world’s oceans.

Wednesday’s Budget will announce moves to slash production of single-use plastics such as

food packaging, bubble wrap, polystyrene takeaway boxes, drinking straws and throwaway cutlery.

The moves were welcomed by environmental groups as a first step towards cutting the vast mountain of plastic waste – enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall 1,000 times over – thrown away every year in Britain.

Chancellor Philip Hammond will tell MPS the government will ask for proposals for using financial penalties to reduce plastic use dramatically.

Ministers will examine the introduction of charges for items such as takeaway coffee cups, mirroring the 5p charge on plastic bags in force across the UK, which they regard as a huge success.

The Uk-wide move would be aimed at encouraging the public to bring their own cups to coffee shops, as well as raising consciousness of the environmental harm caused by plastic waste.

The government will also examine whether to impose taxes – equivalent to the “sugar tax” on some soft drinks – on the manufacture of plastic goods.

Whitehall sources said ministers were determined to act and would produce “very ambitious” plans to slash plas- tic use following the consultation.

More than one million birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die every year from eating and getting tangled in plastic waste.

The government said the initiative would build on the plastics bag charge, which has led to an 80 per cent fall in their use since 2015.

The move comes after the launch of a consultation into a bottle deposit scheme to help tackle the plastic pollution crisis. Tisha Brown, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “There is a long way to go, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end for single-use plastic.”