AQW 12178/17-22


Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim


Tabled Date: 16/12/2020
Answered On Date: 12/01/2021
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs what steps his Department has taken to encourage manufacturing businesses to (i) improve the recyclability of their products; and (ii) reduce waste sent to landfill.


Answer:
Adoption of the new targets laid out in The Waste (Circular Economy) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 will require increased recycling and separate collection of waste of a household nature, including that from businesses. Proposals for how these targets can be achieved in Northern Ireland were consulted on recently in the discussion document “Future Recycling and Separation of Waste of a Household Nature in Northern Ireland”. The consultation has now closed and a summary of responses will be published in due course. This summary will help the Department to map out the future landscape of recycling in Northern Ireland.
In addition to this, I am already working with my Ministerial colleagues across the rest of the UK to introduce further legislation for an extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme that will place responsibility on producers for the full net cost of managing their products once those products reach their end of life.  EPR will encourage producers to use plastic packaging that can be recycled, increasing recyclability of products, and this is anticipated to be legislated for in 2023.
Her Majesty’s Treasury has proposed a new plastic packaging tax, which once implemented in 2022, will obligate businesses producing packaging containing plastic to pay the packaging tax unless the packaging contains at least 30% recycled plastic. This is also complimented by DAERA’s membership to the UK Plastics Pact. In contributing to the pact, the Department is directly funding the work of its organisers, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), to develop and disseminate approaches to reduce the environmental impact of plastic packaging. Work is already underway to achieve 4 key industry targets to eliminate unnecessary plastics and/or increase recyclability by 2025.
DAERA’s College for Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) is working with Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association (NIFDA) food and drink processors to facilitate better engagement between the manufacturing sector and policy-makers to help create an improved, shared understanding of the use and potential reduction of plastic in food packaging.
Waste prevention is another key driver in reducing the adverse impacts of waste on the environment and human health. The 2019 Waste Prevention Programme was published earlier this year, following public consultation. The document includes a number of actions to assist businesses in preventing waste and increasing resource efficiency, for example through industrial symbiosis which promotes reuse and repair, diverting things like office furniture from landfill or energy recovery.
Finally, the Courtauld Commitment 2025, launched in 2016, brings together a broad range of organisations involved in the food industry to make food and drinks production and consumption more sustainable. The agreement has a collective ambition to reduce food and drinks waste arising in the UK by 20% by 2025 compared to 2015.