My Lords, I applaud the Government’s determination to drive down the single use of plastics. Clause 54 and its associated Schedule 9 will do a useful job in reducing plastic pollution by introducing a charge on the use of single-use plastics, but Amendment 139 aims to push the Government to be braver and go further with the Bill. I also support the wish to make the use of plastics more transparent in Amendments 130A and 130B.
The lockdown and its subsequent easing have shown us all the dangers of allowing the single-use culture to flourish. I, like many other noble Lords, was appalled when we ordered online delivery shopping during lockdown to find so many of our purchases wrapped in sheaths and sheaths of paper inside a huge cardboard box—all of which had to be thrown away. Many noble Lords have expressed their horror at the litter left behind in our parks and streets as lockdown eased. That litter is not just plastic. It is also wooden cutlery, aluminium cans and paper bags, all of which are used just once and then discarded and all of which despoils our countryside and urban spaces.
On day two of Committee, the Minister said:
“For the long-term legally binding target on waste reduction and resource efficiency, we want to take a more holistic approach to reduce consumption, not just of plastic, but of all materials. This would increase resource productivity and reduce the volume of waste we generate overall”.—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. 255.]
Does the Minister stand by that statement? If so, will he support the holistic approach demanded by this amendment? That holistic approach means that, although the campaign to reduce plastics must be supported, it cannot be carried out at the expense of driving manufacturers and consumers into substituting them with other single-use materials, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, just warned us.
As it stands, Schedule 9 risks creating a situation where single-use plastic will be replaced by other environmentally damaging materials. I have already mentioned that paper is being used extensively for packaging, bags and cups, and wood is being used for cutlery. It is not always possible to determine the provenance of all paper and wood. Not all our pulp for imported paper comes from the EU and the USA. Annually, more than 750,000 hectares of timber—equivalent to nearly half the size of Wales—is imported into the UK from China, Russia and Brazil, where there is a high risk of deforestation and a threat to biodiversity. The paper manufacturing process increases the use of chemical waste, creating water pollution and pouring carbon into the atmosphere. A recent study by the Danish environment agency found that a paper bag must be reused 43 times if it is to have a lower environmental impact than the average plastic bag.
Increasingly, coffee shops and cafés are stocking disposable paper cups that do not contain plastic. As the Bill stands, they will not be included in the new
charges. There were 5 billion disposable coffee cups used in the UK last year. Noble Lords only have to look at the aftermath of any big event to see the plethora of paper cups left littering the venue and its surrounding areas. A charge on all single-use items would go a long way to decreasing the number of disposable cups being used. Studies show that a charge of just 25p could reduce that use by more than 30%.
There were similar fears of plastic being substituted by aluminium cans, which can have a similar devastating effect on the environment. Aluminium production is energy intensive and accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Studies show that UK aluminium has one of the highest greenhouse gas impacts per kilogram of any packaging in the UK.
PwC examined the greenhouse gas impacts of packaging types currently used in the UK of the behalf of the Circular Economy Task Force. It found that all materials used for packaging consumed annually in the UK account for 13.4 megatonnes of carbon, or 2% of this country’s carbon emissions. The scale of emissions created by packaging, revealed by this study, makes it clear that the Government’s resources strategy should prioritise the reduction of all virgin materials. In a recent survey of stakeholders, one supermarket said about the drive to reduce plastics:
“The whole agenda needs to be more aligned and more encompassing with carbon. We’re so focused on the plastics that we seem to have lost sight of the impacts around climate.”
This amendment will go far to remedy these threats by bearing down on single-use materials consumption and shifting this country’s focus to a culture of reuse and refill, which must be a priority in developing the circular economy promoted by this Bill. Driving down material consumption and shifting to the reuse of materials must remain the Government’s highest priority.
When a similar amendment to this one was tabled in the other place, the Minister, Rebecca Pow, said that, when looking at this Bill, it bears down on this country’s disposable culture. She said that it needs to be taken into account
“how much of the Bill is aimed at tackling”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/11/20; col. 439.]
single-use plastic. Is this answer sufficient to win the war on single-use culture? Can the Minister explain to the Committee why the Government should not introduce these wider charges? Surely they should be encouraging manufacturers and consumers to reuse as many products as possible; it is a vital part of the circular economy.