Maria Eagle – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2014-04-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the marine environment of the exemption of biodegradable plastic bags and paper bags from his single-use plastic bag charging policy.

Dan Rogerson

Plastic, mainly plastic bags and bottles, is estimated to account for more than 70% of the total number of marine debris in European seas. The charge will focus on plastic bags as this is a targeted, proportionate approach to the problem of carrier bag distribution and littering.

Paper bags make up less than 0.1% of carrier bags distributed in the UK by the seven major supermarket retailers. Overall, paper bags make up a very small proportion of total carrier bag numbers, the vast majority of which are single-use plastic bags.

Plastic carrier bags take the longest to degrade in the natural environment, therefore decomposition in the marine environment will be one of the considerations when setting a standard for a biodegradable plastic bag exempt from the charge.