Stalled waste reform could see more plastic going to landfill, burnt or dumped abroad, MPs warn

Recycling rates have failed to improve since 2011 and a failure by ministers to better develop its plans will see more plastic waste than ever before ending up in landfill, burnt or exported, MPs have warned.

Ambitious plans for dealing with waste have stalled because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) lacks effective long-term plans to reduce waste which contributes to climate change.

Targets for businesses to produce less waste and for households to reuse, recyle and repair more of it have failed to reach the 2020 goal of 50 per cent and are stuck at 43-44 per cent, the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.

MPs warn that Defra’s continued “lack of clarity” over its waste plans as well as the facilities required to deal with the tons of waste being produced in England is “actively hampering” the levels of “essential investment” needed to effectively deal with it.

As a result “there is a real risk of insufficient facilities to deal with the increased volumes of recycling arising from the reforms, meaning packaging will be incinerated, sent to landfill, or exported for other countries to deal with,” the PAC said.

The Government wants businesses to produce less plastic and people to recycle more of it and has set a target to recycle 65 per cent of municipal waste by 2035, which includes paper and glass as well as plastic.

The PAC said Defra has failed to set out how the waste system as a whole needs to change resulting in waste disposal companies being left uncertain and lacking the clarity of what will be required.

Defra says a critical part of minimising the damage to the environment from waste involves increasing waste prevention and reuse. “Its target is to double resource efficiency by 2050, but it is not clear what the department’s plans are for meeting the target,” the report says.

In the summer, Downing Street pared back plans to force manufacturers to cover the costs of collecting and recycling packaging, under what is known as the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) scheme.

Current recycling rates have sat just below 45 per cent for several years and ministers recently announced a ban on single-use items in an effort to get it higher. A bottle deposit return scheme planned for 2025 which will see people rewarded for recycling plastic bottles has been criticised for slowness and for failing to include glass.

Defra is basing the design of the deposit return scheme on small trials and international experience. The National Audit Office recommended Defra pilot the scheme due to uncertainties around the scale of the benefits but Defra has rejected the idea.

The PAC said Defra lacks “good enough data to manage the waste system effectively which it needs to understand how waste is recycled and to ensure waste exports are legal”.

Collection and packaging reforms are still to be implemented and councils and businesses will lack the capacity to cope unless the Government spells out what the reforms will amount to. The results of a public consultation into recycling which ended two years ago remain unpublished and Defra has delayed implementing the first step until 2025 because of departmental “weaknesses” in the department, MPs said.

Official plans to combat waste crime, which has seen hundreds of tons of waste dumped, burnt, illegally shipped abroad to developing countries, are also delayed. A scheme to digitally track waste, five years delayed, will not be ready until April 2025.

Industry research suggests waste crime costs the English economy £1m every year through evaded tax, environmental and social harm and lost legitimate business.

Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said: “Changing how we deal with waste is crucial to save the environment from further damage and meet the legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050.

“To meet its targets, it’s vital that the Government encourages a circular economy where products can be used again or for longer.

“Without a clearly communicated vision from government on how these crucial reforms will actually work in practice, it’s unlikely that these targets are reachable.”

She added that Defra lacks a clear plan on how to realise its ambitions, meaning consumers, businesses and local councils are not able to prepare for the changes and are “crying out for information”.

The committee wants Defra to improve the way it runs programmes in future to avoid similar delays and set a date for when it will say how much extra businesses will have to pay to produce packaging and how the changes will impact local authority funding.

It also said Defra should explain how it expects to meet its 65 per cent target given its simpler recycling programme is expected to achieve 62 per cent at best.

A Defra spokesperson said: “Significant progress has been made on the delivery of our reforms to reduce waste and improve our use of resources.

“We are working with the supply chain to strengthen relationships and ensure they are kept informed and involved.

“We are delivering on our commitments. In October we set out a new, simpler, common-sense approach to recycling, meaning that people across England will be able to recycle the same materials alongside proposals for a weekly food waste.”