If there is one area of public policy that has improved over the last 20 years, it’s recycling. Thanks to the ambitious targets set by the Welsh Labour Government and action taken by local authorities of all political persuasions, and most importantly by householders, Wales is leading the way in recycling as well as on waste prevention and reuse. While recycling used to be done by the most environmentally aware—and some people will remember a time when, in some authorities, people had to pay for the privilege of recycling by having to buy special bags for recycling—now recycling is done by the majority of the people of Wales. The challenge is to make it all of the people in Wales recycling everything they can all of the time, and that’s a big challenge. We’re now on course to become the highest recycling nation in Europe, and the aim has to be to see a zero waste Wales. Recycling rates in Wales have already increased by more than anywhere else in the UK in the past decade, and Wales now leads UK in the recycling of municipal waste. Eurostat figures for European municipal waste recycling rates show that UK as a whole is in 10 place on 43.5 per cent. However, in the 12 months to September 2016, Wales recorded a 62 per cent recycling rate, which is not only ahead of the 58 per cent target set by the Welsh Government for 2016-17, but also shows Wales outperforming the UK as a whole by over 18 per cent. I think we’ve got to say well done to local authorities on this. Far too often people are very critical of local authorities and local councils, but they are the ones at the sharp end who are making sure this is achieved. Ministers can have policies, but unless the Welsh local authorities go out there and ensure that what we’re asking for is carried out then we will not get to where we need to be. I really do think we need to show our appreciation for local authorities of all political persuasions in what they’ve done.

The landfill tax has driven local authorities to recycle. It is now much more expensive to place rubbish in a hole in the ground than it is to recycle materials. Also, greater environmental awareness by individuals—and again, credit to the schools for promoting recycling—has meant that and more people are willing to recycle. Schools have pushed environmental matters for very many years, and the people who were being pushed on recycling in the schools 20 years ago are now having their own homes and they are making sure they do recycle. I think that some of the things that schools do like this, whilst not examined—they don’t get any marks from Estyn, and don’t get any marks from PISA—do actually make Wales a better place.

One of the problems stopping recycling from increasing further is a lack of clarity, especially with plastics. What can and cannot be recycled? UPVC: can it be recycled? What about Tetra Paks? What about plastic-coated cups? Are plastic wrappers around magazines, which we all get in large numbers, recyclable? And also, having watched ‘The One Show’ last night, I discovered that the black plastic microwavable packaging is not able to be recycled. That came as a shock to me, and I consider myself knowledgeable on this. I always assumed that anything that was hard plastic could be recycled. What we need is for all plastic to be recycled. Too often members of the public are confused over whether something can be recycled or not, and what they do is they take the easy option and they send it to landfill. What we’ve got to do is make sure that that doesn’t happen. Recycle for Wales, a Welsh Government grant funded campaign, recently launched a campaign that persuades people in Wales to increase the food recycling rate by 50 per cent. Wales already recycles half of its food waste and leads the UK, but there’s more to be done. Again, clarity is needed. When food recycling was introduced in Swansea, bones and chicken carcases could not be recycled as food, now they can. Does everybody even know about the change? Also, as in Swansea, food waste needs to be collected weekly. People don’t want to leave food waste out for longer than that or some people will not recycle it, they’ll just get rid of it.

Whilst I support a deposit-return scheme for plastic and glass bottles and cans, and will support the amendment—I remember the Corona bottles with 5p deposit on them, which then went up to 10p deposit on them, and I spent many a happy time down the beach collecting such bottles and returning them—I do not see how it can work on anything but an England-and-Wales basis, otherwise you may well have waste tourism going the wrong way. Otherwise cans and bottles bought in England without a deposit, especially on the border, will be returned in Wales. But I think it really is something that’s very important. People say it won’t work. It worked for very many years. For those people who remember Corona bottles, they always had money on them, people always took them back, and if they didn’t there’d be no shortage of children collecting them to take them back to get the money. So, I think that it is something that is very good, and we do need to go at it. It’s the need for it to be on an England-and-Wales basis, not to have confusion around the border.

Finally, I want to commend Swansea on its recycling. Recyclable materials are collected separately. Those taking black bags of mixed rubbish ready for landfill have their bags opened and those items that can be recycled identified for them. For the first 11 months of 2016-17, unconfirmed recycling figures in Swansea are almost 64 per cent. In terms of the household waste recycling centres initiative, the monthly tonnage of residual waste has dropped from about 1,000 tonnes per month to under 200 tonnes per month. So progress is being made—well done local authorities.