See:  Plastic Bottle Tracker PBT     

TWO articles

1.The Environmental Audit Committee calls for the introduction of a UK-wide deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, a requirement to provide free drinking water in public premises, and to make producers financially responsible for the plastic packaging they produce.

• Read the report summary
• Read the conclusions and recommendations
• Read the full report: Plastic Bottles: Turning Back the Plastic Tide

Chair’s comments

Mary Creagh MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said:

“Urgent action is needed to protect our environment from the devastating effects of marine plastic pollution which, if it continues to rise at current rates, will outweigh fish by 2050. Our throwaway society uses 13 billion plastic bottles each year, around half of which are not recycled. Plastic bottles make up a third of all plastic pollution in the sea, and are a growing litter problem on UK beaches.  We need action at individual, council, regional and national levels to turn back the plastic tide.”

The Committee calls on the Government to:

• Introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for plastic drinks bottles
• Introduce a requirement for all public premises that serve food and drink to provide free drinking water
• Increase the number of public water fountains
• Make producers financially responsible for the plastic packaging they produce and to phase in a mandated 50% recycled plan

Click here to read more

2.Drinks firm lobbied against deposit return scheme – Big surprise. Plastic pollution is ‘low priority’ for shoppers, soft drinks execs tell government

Greenpeace: Polling contradicts the soft drinks industry’s suggestion the public doesn’t care much about plastic waste   Soft drinks executives told government officials most shoppers don’t care much about the environmental impact of the plastic drinks bottles they buy, according to documents seen by Unearthed.  Coca-Cola, Lucozade Ribena, Danone and Nestle were among those invited to a soft drinks roundtable to discuss the problem of plastic bottle waste and recycling at Defra’s headquarters in October.  They told officials: “the environmental impact of packaging was low on consumers’ priorities when buying a soft drink”, according to a note of the meeting obtained by Unearthed using Freedom of Information rules.  Plastic pollution, particularly single-use packaging such as drinks bottles, has come under increasing scrutiny in the past year after global concern at the amount of plastic entering the oceans: an estimated 15m plastic drinks bottles are thrown away rather than recycled every day in the UK. Click here to read more.

The Marine Conservation Society backs all of the recommendations in the report, and has long demanded attention be given to supply chain and product design so that items are designed to be repaired, reused and then, at end-of-life, easily recycled. MCS has also called for a minimum recycled content in plastic products, and a producer responsibility system where the producers and consumers pay the full costs of the collection and disposal of products.

At present, taxpayers bear the brunt – around 90% – of costs to deal with waste plastic. Manufacturers and suppliers only contribute 10% of the cost of disposal and recycling. Dr Laura Foster says, “We must see producers’ contribution to waste disposal represent the full cost of the disposal, and incentivise good design to ensure ease of recyclability”.

In a survey conducted by Yougov, commissioned by the Marine Conservation Society, over half of all respondents said they would be likely to make use of water refill stations at shopping centres (54%) and outdoor recreation spaces (53%), closely followed by train and bus stations (48%), supermarkets (47%), cafes/restaurants (46%) and service stations (43%) if they were available.  The Marine Conservation Society is calling for a wide programme of action on plastics for Government and industry, detailed at www.mcsuk.org/stop-the-plastic-tide.