Bottle deposit charge needed to save oceans from plastic waste, say MPs

A nationwide bottle deposit charge is the central recommendation of a new parliamentary report on plastic waste, which MPs said should be introduced as soon as possible.

The report by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has also said that all public premises which serve food or drink should have to provide free drinking water.

Small charges for plastic bottles which are then refunded when bottles are returned are commonplace in a number of countries.

The report also recommends a target of 50 per cent of plastic bottles to come from recycled plastic by 2023.

Mary Creagh, 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 UK’s recycling rate for plastic bottles has stalled for the past five years, the MPs said.

They argue that while consumption of on-the-go soft drinks and water increases, measures are needed to stop bottles ending up as litter or landfill, and the Government should introduce a deposit return scheme for such bottles to boost recycling rates to 90 per cent.

And with 7.7 billion plastic water bottles being used each year in the UK, reducing use is a priority, the report says.

All public premises which serve food or drink – not just those which are licensed, as at present – should be required to provide free drinking water.

The Government should also look at the health and litter-reducing benefits of providing public water fountains, and give water companies formal powers to erect them, the report said.

Producers currently only pay for 10 per cent of the cost of packaging disposal and recycling, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for the other 90 per cent, evidence submitted to the MPs showed.

The committee called for the Government to adopt a system of producer-responsibility fees, which reward design that makes items easy to recycle and raises charges on packaging that is hard to recycle.

A spokesman for the Environment Department (Defra) said: “We are determined to tackle plastic waste and have made progress by taking nine billion plastic bags out of circulation with our 5p carrier bag charge, and we will be introducing one of the world’s toughest bans on plastic microbeads.

“An independent working group launched a call for evidence to help understand the benefits, costs and impacts of deposit and reward and return schemes for plastic bottles and other drinks containers in England.

“This group is due to provide advice to ministers in early 2018.”