Join the Call for Greater Ambition to Tackle Plastic Pollution

This month, the long-awaited Environment Bill made its return to Parliament. The Bill presents a pivotal opportunity to create a world leading piece of legislation that will protect our environment for generations to come. The Bill is particularly important in the context of Brexit, with the bulk of our environmental laws emanating from Brussels, we will need to replace many regulations nationally.

Whilst much of the Bill so far is a great step forward in tackling pressing environmental issues, there are important areas where it falls far short of creating meaningful change.

Our breifing to peers in the House of Lords can be found here.

One of these areas is plastic pollution, and that’s where you come in. We need you to contact your MP and ask them to support an amendment to the Bill establishing plastic reduction targets.

To accompany welcome measures like a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, we need ambitious targets that tackle the plastic pollution crisis at its source - by limiting and reducing the amount of plastic that is produced and consumed in the first place.

Everyday, a deluge of plastic continues to enter the environment. Plastic packaging production is expected to double by the late 2030s, and quadruple by 2050. Working with our friends at The WI, Friends of the Earth, Surfers Against Sewage, and Tearfund, we’re campaigning to get ambitious targets that reduce plastic production and consumption at source.

Public appetite for such measures has never been higher, especially from the younger generation. In fact last week, two of Westminster’s most influential environmental All-Party Parliamentary Groups came together, inviting youth activists from across the country to quiz a panel of leading experts on the true solutions to plastic pollution.

This was the first ever joint Ocean Conservation and Tidy Britain APPG (the latter of which Keep Britain Tidy provides the secretariat for) event with hundreds of students, politicians, and environmental NGOs in attendance. Our expert line-up included the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt Hon George Eustice MP, Prof Richard Thompson, Director of the Marine Institute at Plymouth University, and Lucy Siegle, writer and broadcaster.

Solutions discussed by the panel ranged from the need for manufacturers to take greater responsibility for the products they produce, increasing the transparency of recycling streams, adopting a circular economy, and enshrining legislation that prevented the production of unnecessary plastic in the first place. You can watch a full recording of the event here.

In his concluding remarks for the event, Chair of the Tidy Britain APPG, Kevin Hollinrake MP, affirmed that “prevention is by far the best cure and has to be our focus, [...] the Environment Bill will undoubtedly be the vehicle for such legislation, ensuring that the production and sale of unnecessary and pointless plastics is prevented in future.”

Your MP represents your interests in parliament, and we need you to make sure they act on preventing plastic pollution. You can find out who your local MP is as well as their contact details here, and send them an email using our template here.

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