In England, it is estimated that annually we use 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million plastic stirrers and 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed cotton buds. An estimated 10% of cotton buds are flushed down toilets and can end up in waterways and oceans. Even though non-plastic alternatives are readily available, these single-use plastic items are used for just a few minutes but take hundreds of years to break down. Cleaning up the effects of littering costs local Government millions of pounds every year. To eliminate these items from use, the Government intends to introduce a ban on their distribution and sale. The ban would come into force at some point between October 2019 and October 2020, subject to the views collected during consultation.
Kate Nicholls CEO of UKHospitality said ”We wholeheartedly welcome this consultation on an issue of vital importance and one which hospitality has already taken significant action.” Greenpeace UK’s political adviser Sam Chetan Welsh commented “Our society’s addiction to throwaway plastic is fuelling a global environmental crisis that must be tackled. Ministers are doing the sensible thing by looking to ban single-use plastic items that can be easily replaced with better alternatives or that we can simply do without. But this should be just the start.”