Chewing gum and crisps face Spring Statement litter levy

CHEWING gum, crisps and takeaway food containers could all be subject to a litter levy under measures to be announced in the Chancellor’s Spring Statement tomorrow.

Philip Hammond has joined Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, in a crusade against plastic waste and will launch a consultation on how to reduce the millions of tons thrown away in Britain each year.

Chewing gum, which is not water soluble and takes months to decompose, is regarded as a single-use plastic in some countries and can be harmful to wildlife as well as blighting pavements.

Treasury officials are contemplating including chewing

‘There’s no reason why chewing gum should not be considered in this’

gum in the public consultation document that Mr Hammond will release tomorrow.

It means gum manufacturers could eventually be subject to the sort of levy that the Treasury is also con- templating for plastic cups, cutlery, bottles, foam trays and other single-use plastics.

A Treasury source said: “This is literally saying to everyone, ‘tell us your views on what we should do’, and there’s no reason why chewing gum should not be considered as part of this.”

Each piece of gum that ends up stuck to pavements costs 10p to remove – more than the gum costs to begin with.

Keep Britain Tidy has already called on the Government to change the law to make manufacturers more

responsible for the costs of clearing it up. Gum contains synthetic rubber, meaning it can be recycled, and Anna Bullus, the British designer, has already started turning chewed gum into bins, wellington boots, shoe soles and even reusable coffee cups.

Mr Hammond has described singleuse plastics waste as “a scourge to our environment” and aides say he wants to “put the weight of the Treasury” behind attempts to solve the problem. As well as considering taxing plastics at source, he will announce a £20million innovation fund to encourage businesses and universities to develop biodegradable or recyclable alternatives to plastics.

“This isn’t a case of seeing something and taxing it,” said a Treasury source. “We want to unleash the Great British entrepreneurial spirit and find some solutions to this.” Britain produces enough single-use plastic waste every year to fill the Royal Albert Hall 1,000 times. Despite an 80per cent reduction in plastic bag waste since the 5p levy was introduced, the UK still creates 2.26million tons of plastic packaging waste each year and only recycles about a third of that.

Coffee cups will be included in the review, despite the Government rejecting a 25p levy suggested by the environmental audit committee last week.