§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to discuss with the Chancellor of the Exchequer opportunities to introduce financial incentives in support of mandatory targets established for industry to meet in reducing packaging waste and to promote recycling of packaging wastes.
§ Mr. YeoThe Government believe that it should not be necessary to impose mandatory targets to achieve their objectives of reducing packaging waste and securing increased levels of recovery and recycling. In our producer responsibility initiative, we have given industry the task of devising the most cost-effective means of recovering between 50 and 75 per cent. of packaging waste by the year 2000. We expect industry to provide us by Christmas with a plan for achieving those targets.
We have indicated that, wherever possible, we will use economic instruments to secure our environmental objectives rather than regulation. Producer responsibility is one such economic instrument. Another possibiility which we are considering is the idea of a landfill levy, which could provide an incentive to reduce waste and encourage higher levels of recovery, including recycling.