Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 15
Third Report - The price of plastic: ending the toll of plastic waste
Published 7 Nov 2022
Paragraph 72
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Plastic waste All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
However, there is a risk that PPT, as currently designed, will not deliver against its intended objectives. A flat 30% recycled content requirement may well prove too easy for some sectors to achieve while acting as an unavoidable financial penalty in sectors with no viable alternatives, encouraging producers to swap to more environmentally damaging options. We recommend that the Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT) should be modulated with different, stretching targets tailored to different sectors and including partial exemptions for recycled content levels below the level at which a full exemption is granted, but above 10%. The Government should also set out a timetable for increasing the percentage of recycled material needed to attract total exemption from the tax to further stimulate demand for recycled plastics. The first such increase should come into force by 2025.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Third Report - The price of plastic: ending the toll of plastic waste (HC 22), paragraph 72, 7 November 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 January 2023 (deadline 7 January 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with the Committee on the importance of the waste hierarchy and on reuse, but disagrees with several recommendations, including dropping the qualifier "avoidable" from the 2042 plastic waste target and a ban on all plastic waste exports.
- It agrees that more use of reusable packaging is desirable and intends to "come forward with our proposals in 2024" on measures such as targets, obligations and whether there is a role for modulating fees.
- It disagrees with an exit strategy for the Packaging Waste Recovery Note system within a year of EPR starting, because it wants "to make sure we put the right measures in place at the right time".
- It disagrees with modulating the Plastic Packaging Tax, saying the 30% recycled content threshold is "ambitious", and keeps the rate and threshold "under review". Changes are a matter for Treasury Ministers.
- It disagrees with a ban on all plastic waste exports, expecting "legitimate exports to continue", and has committed to banning exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries.