§ Mr. Laurence RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement about the availability of plastic recycling facilities(a) in England and (b) in Gloucestershire; [62067]
(2) what steps she is taking to increase plastic recycling facilities; and if she will make a statement. [62068]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Department does not keep a central record of recycling facilities. However, I understand that two local authorities in Gloucestershire collect plastic for recycling—Gloucester City Council and Stroud District Council. In addition, Stroud District Community Recycling group operates a kerbside collection of materials including plastic.
We have set statutory performance standards for recycling or composting household waste for each local authority in England. Authorities are required, on average, to double recycling by 2003–04 and triple it by 2005–06. Future targets for local authorities will be even more demanding and many authorities will need to begin collecting plastic for recycling in order to meet these targets. It is up to local authorities to decide how best to meet their recycling standards, depending on local circumstances such as housing type. However, the Government is taking various steps which should help boost plastic recycling and create more facilities.
Last year the Government set up the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), with £40 million of Government and Devolved Administration funding, to tackle the market barriers to increased recycling. WRAP has identified plastics as a priority area in its business plan to 2003–04 and they intend to award a grant to address the lack of plastics reprocessing infrastructure, which should result in an additional 20,000 tonnes per annum of post—consumer plastic bottles being diverted from the waste stream. New plastic reprocessing facilities will create more demand for local authorities to collect recyclable plastic.
I recently announced the arrangements for the distribution of the £140 million fund to assist local authorities in meeting their recycling targets. We expect this fund to go towards developing new and existing recycling schemes and in some cases money from the fund may well be used to extend collection schemes to include plastics. We have specifically earmarked a proportion of this funding for tackling more difficult waste streams such as plastic.