Chancellor Philip Hammond said more than 162,000 responses were received for the department’s call for evidence on plastic waste, showing “an extraordinary” level of public interest. He has published a summary of responses and proposed Government actions in Tackling the Plastic Problem.

Treasury officials said will examine ideas raised including using the tax system to shift demand towards using recycled plastic in manufacturing, encouraging more sustainable design, reducing demand for single-use plastic items and an incineration tax.

The Treasury said some respondents felt that including waste exported for recycling within UK performance measures, “further discourages investment in recycling capacity”, while recyclers, in particular, suggested that packaging recovery notes (PRNs) and PERNs having equal value “encouraged the export of waste for recycling”. They called instead for a tax on exported waste to support domestic recycling.

There was also support for using tax to change the relative value of virgin and recycled polymers, to increase demand for the latter and encourage and expansion of recycling capacity.

Public backing for proposals to combat single-use plastic waste could lead to the Treasury implementing a tax on virgin polymers and exported waste in order to stimulate the market in secondary materials.

Orginal Source