25 Year Environment Plan - Summary

Below are some key policies and statements from the 25 Year Environment Plan.

Waste

• We will minimise waste, reuse materials as much as we can and manage materials at the end of their life to minimise the impact on the environment. We will do this by:

- Working towards our ambition of zero avoidable waste by 2050.
- Working to a target of eliminating avoidable plastic waste by end of 2042
- Meeting all existing waste targets – including those on landfill, reuse and recycling – and developing ambitious new future targets and milestone.

• We will work with waste management services and producers to support policies that deliver high-quality and quantity recycling, minimise environmental impact and ensure well-functioning secondary material markets (the use of recycled material in preference to virgin raw materials).
• Accelerate shift to consistency in material

Producer responsibility

• Encourage producers to take more responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products and rationalise the number of different types of plastic in use by:

- Working with industry to rationalise packaging formats and material formats to make sure that more plastics can be easily recycled and the quality of collected recycled plastics is improved.
- Reforming our producer responsibility systems (including packaging waste regulations) to incentivise producer to take greater responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products. This will include exploring extending producer responsibility requirements to plastic products not currently covered by our existing regimes to create a better market for recycled plastics.

Biodegradable material

• Produce standards for biodegradable plastic bags

Littering

• Voluntary and regulatory interventions to cut littered items
• Mentions the litter strategy and businesses investing in anti-litter activities aiming to increase recycling and reduce litter – or through product design, behavioural research and investment in campaign
• Provides guidelines on binfrastructure

Climate change

• We will take all possible action to mitigate climate change, while adapting to reduce its impact. We will do this by – Continuing to cut greenhouse gas emissions including from land use, land use change, the agriculture and waste sector and the use of fluorinated gases. The UK Climate Change Action 2008 commits us to reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2015 compared to 1990 levels.

Sustainability

• We are committed to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals across government and have set up a cross-Whitehall Sustainability Development Forum to co-ordinate and facilitate implementation of SDGs in the UK.
• Working in partnership with industry to explore the possibility of developing additional tools that support businesses to identify sustainable supply chains.

Life Cycle assessment

• Work with partners to consider whether benchmarking of environmental products and supply chain certification schemes could make consumers more aware of them, and drive higher standards
• Government would like more efficient production process and better design products that reduce waste.

Other

• WRAP is working to develop a new cross-sector commitment to tackle plastic waste. This will align with Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy and have an initial focus on plastic packaging’.

To read the Environment Plan please click here.