11 January 2023 – Thérèse Coffey, the Environment Secretary, has confirmed that the UK Government is set to ban single-use plastic in England.
The UK Government has confirmed plans to ban single-use plastic in England. The planned ban follows a consultation on this topic by the Deparment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which was held between November 2021 and February 2022.
Plastic items such as plastic plates, trays and cutlery will be covered by the ban. Government figures show that 1.1 billion single-use plates and 4.25 billion single-use cutlery items are used in England per year.
Only 10% of these are recycled. Which is why the Government wants to move away from this avoidable plastic waste. The ban aims at forcing businesses and consumers to look for more sustainable alternatives.
The Scale Of The Problem
Plastic pollution is a huge problem. Annually about 370 million metric tons are produced globally per year. A big part of this will become waste, and single-use plastic is a big part of this waste.
Because plastic takes a while to breakdown, it will stay in our environment and cause great harm.
According to Stasista, UK households bin 100 billion pieces of plastic every year, which means on average every household throws away 66 items every week.
The majority of this plastic waste consists of food packaging, such as wrappers, snack bags and fruit and veg trays.
Only 44.2% of the plastic waste in the UK was recycled in 2021. However, this also included incineration, where plastic is burned to produce energy, and exporting plastic waste to other countries.
It’s estimated that only 12% of plastic waste is actually recycled in the UK, almost half is incinerated.
Given the amount of plastic the UK produces and uses, any ban on single-use plastic is greatly needed to tackle the issue.
Many Details Still Unknown
The report of the consultation will be published on 14 January, so the details of the proposed ban are not yet known.
But according to reports, the new ban will focus on plastic items in relation to takeaway food and drink packaging, such as polystyrene food containers, plastic cutlery and plates.
Research has shown that these types of single-use plastic items are the biggest offender of plastic pollution in our oceans.
Campaigners have long called for such a ban, arguing that plastic pollution is one of the biggest problems. The UK Government seems to agree.
A plastic fork can take 200 years to decompose, that is two centuries in landfill or polluting our oceans. I am determined to drive forward action to tackle this issue head on.
Thérèse Coffey, Environment Secretary
With this ban, England will follow Schotland and Wales, who have already introduced similar bans. In 2020, the UK Government banned single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers.
The Environment Secretary claims that this new ban will build on the existing ban and expects its impact to be huge.
However, the Daily Mail reported that while the ban will cover plastic items such as bowls and plates used in restaurants, cafés or takeaways, the same items will still be allowed to be used in shops or supermarkets.
This was justified in the consultation document from November 2021, because packaging in a supermarket would be classed as “primary packaging”. As such, the Government argued, it will be covered by a different legislation, which is due to be enacted in 2024, the Mail on Sunday reported.
As of yet it is not yet known when the ban will come into effect. However, some media outlets have reported the ban is due to take effect in October 2023.
Campaigners Say The Ban Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Campaigners have widely welcomed this ban. However, they also say that it doesn’t go far enough and that more needs to be done to tackle the problem.
We’re dealing with a plastic flood, and this is like reaching for a mop instead of turning off the tap.
Megan Randles, Political Campaigner for Greenpeace UK
Greenpeace UK called on the Government to come up with a strategy that will reduce the use of plastic. Such a strategy should include targets to reduce plastic as well as the introduction of a reuse and refill scheme.
Allison Ogden-Newton from Keep Britain Tidy has also welcomed the move, but thinks that we, as a society, need to reduce our reliance on single-use plastic items. Not only is their production resource-intensive, but most of it ends up in the bin or as litter on the ground shortly after it has been used.
She is calling on the Government to introduce a comprehensive deposit return scheme that will include plastic, glass bottles and aluminium cans. Too often these end up in our environment as pollution, rather than being recycled and reused.
Other single-use items, such as disposable barbecues and sky lanterns should also be looked at, as these do a lot of harm to our wildlife and environment.
Lee Marshall, policy and external affairs director at the Chartered Institute of Waste Managment, also sees the introduction of the ban as positive.
But he says that waste has to be eliminated from the point of design. Rather than producing items that will be thrown away after use, the items should be designed to be reused and refilled.
Reducing our reliance on plastic and recycling and reusing the plastic we do use is hugely important in tackling plastic pollution. And a ban on single-use plastic is a good start.
