The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has called for a ban on the export of all plastic waste from the UK by 2027 to reduce the country’s contribution to global plastic waste pollution.
In its report, ‘The price of plastic: ending the toll of plastic waste’, the MPs argue that the ban should form part of a strategy to use less plastic and recycle more of it.
The UK currently exports around 60% of the 2.5 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste it creates, with Turkey being the largest destination for such exports.
There are concerns that when plastic is exported it is then burned and dumped in the receiving country, something that the MPs say causes “irreversible and shocking” environmental and human health impacts.
The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Sir Robert Goodwill MP, said: “For far too long the UK has been reliant on exporting its waste overseas and making it someone else’s problem. Plastic waste originating in our country is being illegally dumped and burned abroad. The UK must not be a part of this dirty trade and that’s why we are calling for a total ban on waste plastic exports.
In tackling the problem, the Commons committee recommends initially restricting the amount of plastic that can be exported from the UK, and then banning exports completely.
The committee also makes wider, longer-term recommendations aimed at reducing the UK’s consumption of plastics, increasing domestic recycling capacity by boosting investment in the sector, and creating a more ‘circular economy’ to reduce how much waste the UK produces.
The MPs suggest that if the UK takes a lead plastic recycling, it has the potential to create hundreds of new jobs and build a multi-billion pound waste management industry
The Select Committee report has been welcomed by the environmental campaign group, Grreenpeace.
Megan Corton Scott, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK said, “The fact that the UK continues to foist huge amounts of our plastic waste onto other nations makes a mockery of the claim that the UK is a leader in combating plastic pollution. It is not leadership to simply offload our plastic problem onto other, poorer countries – leaving their communities blighted by health hazards and environmental damage that the dumping and burning of this waste causes. That’s why this report will be welcomed by environmental campaigners at home and abroad – and the government must act upon its recommendations”.
