the United Kingdom

Prevention and reduction of plastic waste generation

Charge for single-use plastic products

The Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) (Amendment) Order 2021 Since 5th October 2015, large retailers in England have been required by law to charge 5p for all single use plastic carrier bags. On 21 May 2021, the charge was increased to 10p and extended to all retailers. Single Use Carrier Bags Charge legislation. In Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales this applies to all retailers:

Northern Ireland: From 2015, the levy charge was extended to carrier bags of any material with a 5p levy.

• Scotland: the carrier bag minimum charge increased from 5p to 10p in April 2021.

Wales: In 2019 the efficacy of the bag charge was reviewed to inform future actions regarding changes in levies or charging scope.

The Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020
We introduced legislation to introduce restrictions on the supply of plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers, with some exemptions, e.g. for medical reasons.

We see a positive improvement from last two years

Comments:
Due to Covid-19 a small number of retailers notified us that they were unable to provide data. In addition, from 21 March 2020 retailers in England did not need to charge for bags used in online grocery deliveries. Non-essential retailers also closed on the 23rd March 2020. These changes affect the last two weeks of the 2019 to 2020 reporting period.

Numerical data if any:
The total number of single use plastic bags sold by all retailers who reported in 2019 to 2020 was 564 million, a 49% decrease on the figures reported by all retailers in 2018 to 2019. Further details can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-charge-data-in-england-for-2019-to-2020.

We estimate that annual plastic straw usage in England will drop from 4.7 billion down to around 264 million. We plan to review the effectiveness of the policy after a year.

Below the surface:
Twenty-five years of seafloor litter monitoring in coastal seas of North West Europe (1992–2017) – ScienceDirect (Maes et al. 2018) showed significant trend in plastic bags (down).

Through the Resources and Waste Strategy for England we have committed to:

• Work towards all plastic packaging placed on the market being reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025
• Ban plastic products where there is a clear case for it and alternatives exist
• Stimulate demand for recycled plastic by introducing a tax on plastic packaging with less than 30% recycled plastic
• Eliminate consumer single-use plastics from the central Government estate

Sustainable Production Goals

• Invoke the ‘polluter pays’ principle and extend producer responsibility for packaging, ensuring that producers pay the full-net costs of disposal for packaging they place on the market. Modulate producers’ fees and introduce packaging recycling targets to increase greater recycling rates, reduce the amount of packaging used, and encourage the
  use of reusable and refillable alternatives. Include the cost of managing littered packaging within full-net costs to incentivise producers to reduce the prevalence of their packaging in the litter stream.
• Introduce a deposit return scheme to incentivise increased recycling of in-scope drinks containers.
• Stimulate demand for recycled plastic by introducing a tax on plastic packaging with less than 30% recycled plastic. This tax will affect UK producers of plastic packaging, importers of plastic packaging, business customers of producers and importers of plastic packaging, and consumers who buy goods in plastic packaging in the UK. The objective of this tax is to provide a clear economic incentive for businesses to use recycled materials in the production of plastic packaging, which will create greater demand for these materials and in turn stimulate increased levels of recycling and collection of plastic waste, diverting it away from landfill or incineration. The introduction of this tax will encourage a shift to recycled content in plastic packaging. This could have positive environmental benefits thanks to the reduction of raw material extraction during the production process.
• Harness the potential of extended producer responsibility for other product types
• Set minimum
  requirements through eco-design to encourage resource efficient product design
• Manage chemicals sustainably and address barriers to reuse and recycling posed by their use, through a Chemicals Strategy
• Develop a model for realising resource efficiency savings, working with businesses through ‘resource efficiency clusters’

The UK is supporting the development of a standard for circular design of fishing gear through CEN (European Committee for Standarisation) Work has commenced, with expected delivery end of 2024.

Microbeads
In 2018 the UK launched one the world’s toughest bans on the sale and manufacture of microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, helping to prevent billions of tiny plastic pieces from entering the ocean every year.

Plastic Pellets
In 2019, the British Irish Council Ministers recognised the need to address pellets as a source of microplastics and committed to learn from a trial supply-chain approach in Scotland. The administrations have supported the development of a Publicly Available Specification developed by the British Standards Institution, which sets out how any business handling or managing pellets can reduce pellet loss. This is the first of its kind and will be published in July 2021

The UK has committed to a ban on exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries

Description:
The UK Government has committed to consulting on options to deliver a ban on plastic waste exports to countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and work is underway to make this happen.

We plan to consult before the end of 2022 on options to deliver the ban and, as a precursor to that consultation, Defra has commissioned research to better understand existing plastic waste recycling capacity in the UK and OECD member countries. This research will be key to the development of policy options to implement the commitment.

Environmentally sound waste management

Enforcement of proper waste management system

The following acts and regulations are in place to enforce proper waste management:

1. Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999. Regulation making powers for a pollution control system and for other measures to prevent and control pollution.
2. Environmental Protection Act 1990. Defines the structure and authority for waste management and control of emissions into the environment.
3. Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016. A framework for environmental regulation, guidance, compliance monitoring and enforcement tools.

Port Waste
Following the UK’s departure from the EU, the UK is seeking to review and engage with stakeholders to gain their views on the effectiveness and adequacy of the current Port Waste Reception Facility regime. Stakeholder engagement will provide the necessary evidence to inform potential policy options to ensure the Regime remains relevant to the UK and that it continues to offer robust environmental protection. The review will also take into consideration best practices from other international Port Waste Reception Facility regimes.

Trapping or screening of drainage / rivers
Many storm overflows which discharge into rivers or the sea from the combined sewerage system in England do have screens. The requirement for screens is set as a condition of the Environmental Permit for discharge.
Trapping or screening drainage / rivers can result in the retention of solids and can create a maintenance issue. The preferred option is to deal with litter / flushed items at source, although not always practicable.

The UK is a signatory to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) under the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the main international convention covering prevention of pollution of the marine environment by ships from operational or accidental causes. MARPOL Annex V seeks to eliminate and reduce the amount of garbage being discharged into the sea from ships and includes a ban on the disposal into the sea of plastics and fishing gear, in addition to other types of garbage.

The UK’s Regulations on the Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships 2020 (S.I. 2020/621) brings in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships (MARPOL Annex V) into UK law.

Under the Regulations, discharge of all garbage into the sea is prohibited with very limited exceptions. In all cases the discharge of plastic is prohibited.

The Regulations require fishing vessels to record the discharge or loss of fishing gear in the Garbage Record Book or ship’s logbook, and require fishing vessels to report the accidental loss or discharge of fishing gear which poses a significant threat to the marine environment or navigation.

Under the Regulations it is an offence to fail to report the discharge of fishing gear which poses a significant threat to the marine environment or navigation to (a) the ship’s flag State and (b) any coastal state who has jurisdiction over the waters where the loss or discharge occurs.
The UK’s Port Waste Reception Facilities Regulations (S.I. 2003/1809) put legal obligations on ports and vessels to manage ship generated waste. All ports and terminals must provide adequate Port Waste Reception Facilities for waste generated by ships. Ships including fishing vessels are required to deliver their ship generated waste to the port waste reception facilities. The UK will be carrying out a review of the current UK regulations on Port Waste Reception Facilities which will commencing in 2021.

Links to regulations:
The Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/1809), further information can be found here.

The Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/621), further information can be found here.

The UK has committed to review and consult on measures such as extended producer responsibly schemes for fishing gear containing plastic and schemes for textiles by 2022.

Cleanup of marine plastic litter

Collection of scattered waste on beach

The Great British Beach Clean (Marine Conservation Society)

Brief description:
The Great British Beach Clean is a week-long citizen science event, where hundreds of beach cleans take place up and down the UK. Litter data collected drives our conservation work and also feeds into the International Coastal Clean-up (ICC).

KIMO Fishing for Litter

Brief description:
The UK supports Fishing for Litter, and the development of similar local schemes. This is a voluntary, unpaid litter bycatch removal scheme by commercial fishermen, run by KIMO, which provides fishing boats with bags to dispose of marine-sourced litter collected during normal fishing operations.

Promotion of innovative solutions

Policy actions for encouraging plastic alternatives (e.g. biodegradable plastics)

The Government published a call for evidence in autumn 2019, to consider the development of standards or certification criteria for bio-based, biodegradable, and compostable plastics and to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system.

Consultation response can be found here Standards for biodegradable, compostable and bio-based plastics: call for evidence – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We are exploring some issues raised in the responses to this call for evidence in our consultation on an extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging as well as our consultation on introducing greater consistency for household and business recycling collections in England which will be published in due course.

We may introduce a ban on oxo-degradable plastics, subject to further consultation.

Comments:
The UK government recognises that innovation into biodegradable plastics could help reduce the environmental impacts of plastics if they are disposed of in the right way.

However, this is often not the case. If biodegradable plastics are put in the domestic waste bin, for example, they are likely to end up in landfill and can break down to release powerful greenhouse gases, such as methane.

If mistakenly recycled with other plastics, they have the potential to damage the quality of the new products made from the recycled plastic. We welcome further evidence on the development and application of robust standards for biodegradability which are proven to apply outside of laboratory conditions.

Research and Innovation Fund

• Plastics and Waste Innovation Fund
• Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund
• Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution (SMEP)

Brief description:
The UK has put together a package of over £100m for research and innovation to tackle the issues that arise from plastic waste:

• £40m has been set aside through the Plastics Research and Innovation Fund and the Plastics and Waste Innovation Fund for research and development, including £10m specifically to pioneer innovative approaches to boosting recycling and reducing litter.
• The Government has also announced £60 million of funding through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, alongside a £150m investment from industry, towards the development of smart, sustainable plastic packaging, which will aim to make the UK a world-leader in sustainable packaging for consumer products.
• SMEP is a wide-ranging programme with a specific stream of work on finding ways to reduce pollution (including from plastics) from manufacturing in poor countries. The plastics efforts are focused on: i) finding alternative materials and substitution opportunities in current design and production processes and ii) waste management advancements, by finding technological solutions for enhanced biodegrading (e.g. funghi).

Public Private Partnerships (PPP)
Through public-private partnerships with Unilever and the mobile industry association (GSMA), RED are supporting the development of innovative business models that encourage plastics reduction, reuse, recycling and reintegration into a circular supply chain. This includes an investment in Côte D’Ivoire (Coliba) that provides mobile credit to consumers in return for recycling plastic waste and Mr Green Africa, a Kenyan company primarily involved in the aggregation, sorting, cleaning, processing and reselling of plastics, among several other examples. Work was recently completed with Unilever and EY to landscape options for investments and steps needed to create an at-scale integrated supply chain for recycled material across sub-Saharan Africa (see here) and a similar paper for South Asia (India and Bangladesh) is currently being prepared.

The Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) brings together multiple civil-society stakeholders across the plastics supply chain to translate political commitments into investible action plans to reduce plastic pollution. GPAP brings together governments, NGOs and the private sector to devise National Plastic Action Partnerships (NPAPs), which focus on mobilising funding and leveraging expertise in-country to create circular economic solutions. GPAP has launched three such NPAPs in Indonesia, Ghana and Vietnam, with the former focused on devising a pathway to help the Indonesian Government to meet its target of reducing marine litter by 70% by 2025. GPAP plan to launch a fourth NPAP in Nigeria in 2021.

The partnership is funded and supported by the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom as well as corporate partners Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Dow Chemical and PepsiCo, demonstrating its international focus. As a key supporter of GPAP, UK representatives sit on all NPAP Steering Boards (usually from the respective High Commission or Embassy in-country), which helps foster international collaboration.

GPAP are also currently creating a toolkit called ‘Systems Toolkit to Eliminate Plastic Pollution – STEP’, a digital platform that will allow partner countries to engage with the NPAP model and share research and evidence to better develop policies on waste management and reducing plastic pollution.

Education and awareness raising

Education system for encouraging public awareness on MPL issues

Domestic

• Through the British-Irish Council commitment the UK is working to improve marine litter education materials for professional fishers.
• The UK delivers Eco-schools programmes through various delivery partners. Each include modules on the importance and harm of litter in relation to terrestrial and marine environment health.

International
The UK funds the Tide Turners Plastic Challenge Badge which is a youth engagement programme delivered by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in partnership with the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and Junior Achievement, as well as specific in-country partners. So far over 370,000 young people have participated in the challenge. The badge not only encourages young people to take action to reduce plastic waste in their own lives, but helps them become leaders in their communities to make sure that as many people as possible join the global fight to tackle the scourge of single-use plastics that is damaging the ocean.

Policy action and awareness raising campaigns related to MPL

National level:

Names of actions:
UK Litter Strategies

Brief description:
The UKs litter strategies bring together communities, businesses, charities and schools to bring about real change by focusing on three key themes: education and awareness; improving enforcement; and better cleaning and access to bins. They are also aiming to improve relevant public and business behaviours, reducing sources, improving monitoring and strengthening co-ordination nationally and internationally.

International / Regional level:

Names of actions:
Blue Planet Fund (BPF) The UK has launched a £500 million Blue Planet Fund that will support developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty.

Financed from the UK Official Development Assistance Budget, the Blue Planet Fund will help eligible countries reduce poverty, protect and sustainably manage their marine resources and address human-generated threats across four key themes: biodiversity, climate change, marine pollution, and sustainable seafood.

The BPF aims to reduce marine pollution through action on land-based and sea-based sources that also contributes to improved livelihoods and healthier environments.

The Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance (CCOA) brings together member states, businesses, NGOs and civil society from across the Commonwealth to commit to action on plastics, share best practice, leverage funding and push for global action
The UK has committed up to £70m to address plastic pollution. This funding supports a package of programmes with organisations including the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), UN Environment Programme’s Tide Turners Plastic Challenge Badge and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Plastic Pacts.

Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP), working in partnership with seven countries across the Commonwealth to identify real world contextualised solutions to the environmental and socio-economic challenges created by marine litter. Over three years, CLiP has focused on knowledge sharing and capacity building and has supported countries to develop marine litter action plans, establish microplastic laboratories, and create and disseminate school and community education packs to raise awareness around plastic pollution. So far, generation of evidence through CLiP has directly contributed to change in legislation in Belize and Vanuatu to ban use of certain single use plastic items.

Tackling Waste and Plastics Pollution Programme The programme includes up to £6m for pilot projects that aim to improve solid waste management approaches in up to 6 cities in developing countries, of which one has been live in this reporting period.

• Uganda: Support for the Kampala Plastics Recycling Partnership, which includes private companies such as Coca-Cola, the Ugandan Government and other stakeholders, to improve the sustainable management of plastic waste in Greater Kampala.

The UK is supporting small projects in a number of countries.

• Tearfund (£3m) Tearfund is working on a proposal to run a plastics project in Haiti (£1m) as well as Pakistan (£2m), working with communities on waste collection.
• WasteAid (£80k) Preventing plastics from reaching the ocean in Cameroon.

The UK is funding Waste Aid to deliver a two-year recycling project in Gambia and a second project in Kenya.

Other UK programming:
WRAP Plastic Pacts: Having signed a UK ‘Plastics Pact’ in 2018, the UK is now funding WRAP to support other Commonwealth countries to develop their own Plastics Pacts. WRAP works to develop a network of Plastics Pacts around the world to support broader transition to a Plastic Circular Economy. The network of Pacts will enable efficient sharing of best practice guidance, practical solutions and resources between countries which share similar challenges.

Monitoring & Scientific research on marine plastic litter

The UK water industry has been working to reduce the amount of litter entering the environment from sewage and waste water systems through extensive investment measures to improve coastal sewage treatment works and collecting systems, including adding screening to and/or reducing volumes from overflows to limit polluting events. In addition, campaigns by water companies to educate the public and businesses on items and material that should not be disposed of in sewers, avoiding blockage and reducing items that might otherwise pass through sewers and treatment processes. Measures to address pollution from surface water runoff and drainage are also likely to reduce litter entering rivers and other water bodies.

Current monitoring for the UK Marine Strategy

1. Seafloor litter bycatch data is recorded during fisheries surveys, providing a spatial coverage of benthic macro-litter.
2. Floating litter washed ashore is monitored by beach litter surveys for macroplastic, surveyed quarterly from around the UK mainland.
3. An indicator for assessing the prevalence of microplastics in sediments is under development, with the expectation that sediment grain size can be included.

Recent and ongoing research:

1. A fishing gear inventory for England, and knowledge on the economics and process of recycling end-of-life fishing gear to allow an informed assessment of the impacts of an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme.
2. Defining and evaluating the pathways of terrestrial litter to the marine environment – evidence review.

Currently funded relevant UK government research includes:

1. Bio-Plastic-Risk – Investigation of Biodegradable plastics as an environmental pollutant in terrestrial and marine environments.
2. Tyre-Loss – Investigation into the prevalence and impact of tyre-wear particles in the marine environment.
3. MINIMISE – Current and future effects of microplastics on marine ecosystems.

OSPAR (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic)

The UK monitors surface litter in the Greater North Sea by recording the volume and type of plastics found in the stomachs of the Northern Fulmar seabird. This data is reported to OSPAR to contribute to the monitoring of surface litter in the North Atlantic Maritime area.

Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP): Over three years, CLiP has focused on knowledge sharing and capacity building and has supported countries to develop marine litter action plans, establish microplastic laboratories, and create and disseminate school and community education packs to raise awareness around plastic pollution. So far, generation of evidence through CLiP has directly contributed to change in legislation in Belize and Vanuatu to ban use of certain single use plastic items.