Representatives from the UK waste industry this week told a cross-party group of MPs that any ban should be global – and not just cover non-OECD countries as proposed by Defra.
Speaking in front of the environment, food and rural affairs (EFRA) committee on Tuesday, Jacob Hayler, executive director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA) said the vast majority of plastic waste is currently exported from the UK under the Green list category. This means firms do not have to pre-notify the Environment Agency (EA) about where they are exporting waste; “this makes it very challenging for them to be able to regulate that appropriately”, he said.
Hayler said there was also a lack of transparency about where some of the plastic waste was ending up. “While there are requirements that the material should then be recycled to an equivalent standard to the UK, it is very difficult to check,” he said.
Hayler noted that the EA inspected between 5 and 6 per cent...