The government is watering down statutory plastic packaging recycling targets just days after high street coffee chains came under fire for allowing millions of coffee cups to end up in landfill.
Campaigners said the announcement - buried in the small print of the Budget on Wednesday - showed that protecting the environment is a low priority for the government.
The UK has a statutory plastic packaging recycling target of 57% by 2017. That target will now be reduced to 49% for 2016 and then increased by 2% each year to 2020, to a maximum of 57%.
For glass, the existing target of 77% will be maintained until 2017 and then increased by one per cent each year to 2020, to 80%.
Legislation on the revised targets will be developed later this year, with the government saying that easing the goals will “reduce the burden on business”.
An estimated 3bn coffee paper cups are thrown away in the UK every year, but it was revealed this week that fewer than one in 400 is recycled, meaning that most end up in landfill, creating unnecessary waste.
The problem is that conventional paper cups produced in bulk are made from paper laminated with plastic, making them difficult to recycle. The issue is due to be highlighted on TV in May in the next stage of campaigner and TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘War on Waste’.
“Not content with boosting tax exemptions for climate-wrecking oil and gas companies, the Chancellor is further damaging the prospects of future generations by cutting back on packaging recycling targets for plastic and glass” said Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth’s acting campaigns director. “Our oceans and countryside are awash with plastic pollution. Cutting these targets shows how little priority the government gives to these issues.”
Martin Myerscough, the creator of what he claims is the world’s first fully recyclable cup, which launches in May, said: “The way forward is to recycle. I always thought it was such a waste that disposable coffee cups couldn’t be easily recycled. In these times of limited resources and diminishing landfill space, a single-use cup that can’t be recycled is an indulgence we just cannot afford. Watering down any kind of packaging recycling targets is a retrograde and very worrying step.”
In the House of Commons on Thursday, the environment minister Rory Stewart, agreed in response to a question from Labour MP Rob Marris that unrecycled coffee cups should be the government’s “next priority”.
