Source · Select Committees · Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Accepted in Part
Paragraph: 99
By 2023, the Government should update its infrastructure roadmap to set out its plan for...
Recommendation
By 2023, the Government should update its infrastructure roadmap to set out its plan for the future role of chemical recycling and composting within our plastics economy and waste management system. In particular, the Government must make a decision, based on the latest evidence about their impact on soil health, on the role of compostables, so that the organic recycling sector can adapt alongside the mandatory collection of food waste in 2024/25. If they are to be encouraged, the Government should adapt national targets to reflect their expected use. Product labelling must also be standardised to clearly indicate to consumers how they should dispose of compostable plastics and prevent them from contaminating other plastic waste streams. Labels should avoid unhelpful terms like ‘biodegradable’.
Government Response Summary
The government will publish the ‘Waste Infrastructure Roadmap’ this year; agrees with the importance of clarity when labelling, pointing to CMA guidance and reaffirming its position that compostable plastics have a limited role given they are inherently single use, and that compostable and biodegradable packaging would be expected to have the ‘do not recycle’ label applied until infrastructure and evidence base is improved.
Paragraph Reference:
99
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
The government will publish the ‘Waste Infrastructure Roadmap’ this year. On the role of chemical recycling, WRAP has published a Plastic Waste Hierarchy6, commissioned by Defra, that clearly shows that chemical, or non-mechanical, recycling is a recycling activity, but is less preferable when compared to conventional, mechanical recycling. Chemical recycling therefore has a role to play where mechanical recycling is not viable. The government agrees with the Committee on the importance of clarity when labelling and notes that the Competition and Markets Authority published helpful guidance7 for businesses in 2021 to help them understand and comply with their existing obligations under consumer protection law when making environmental claims. This guidance provides examples of the use of terms ‘biodegradable’, ‘compostable’, and ‘recyclable’. The government does agree that the term ‘biodegradable’ is unhelpful and in some cases misleading, as it does not necessarily specify how long a material will take to ‘biodegrade’ completely, under what circumstances it will biodegrade and into what outputs. Prior to labelling packaging as ‘recycle’ or ‘do not recycle’ businesses will need to assess the recyclability of their packaging. Government will be commissioning the development of a recyclability methodology so that packaging can be assessed following a common approach and against agreed criteria. Government will invite tenders for the development of this assessment methodology, however a key consideration in determining whether packaging is recyclable or not will be the availability of collection services for recyclable packaging materials and sorting / processing facilities to enable that packaging to be recycled. Along with all other packaging types, compostable and biodegradable packaging will need to be assessed using this approach and the packaging labelled according to the outputs. However, in the Government Response to the pEPR consultation published in March 2022 it was acknowledged that until the infrastructure and evidence base is improved, compostable and biodegradable packaging would be expected to have the ‘do not recycle’ label applied. On recommendations for government to make a decision on the role of compostable plastics, it should be noted that the government position on these materials is already very clear. Compostable plastics have a limited role to play in a circular economy, given they are inherently single use. A 2020 Eunomia report, titled ‘Relevance of Biodegradable and Compostable Consumer Plastic Products and Packaging in a Circular Economy’ established that currently there is inadequate (peer-reviewed) evidence to suggest that 6 The Plastics Waste Hierarchy | WRAP 7 Green claims code: making environmental claims - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)