7. Statement by the Minister for Environment: Extended Producer Responsibility

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:28 pm on 8 May 2018.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 6:28, 8 May 2018

Diolch, Llywydd. I welcome the report, and I'm going to focus in on the £15 million capital funding that we're giving for over three years for the collaborative change programme to increase recycling. What I want to ask, Minister, is if we could use some initiative when we're investing in capital projects, whether it's a new-build school, whether it's an addition to an existing building, or whether it's refurbishing a town centre, because we put public money into all of these schemes, and, at the point of building, it is a real opportunity to ensure that we put some water fountains inside those buildings at that point so that we prevent plastic being used.

I've been looking on the BBC news, and it's been wonderful news for tourism this weekend. People have gone to beaches and places of natural beauty and left their rubbish behind. Barry focuses very prominently in that story, and it took schoolchildren to go behind and clean up. I think Porthcawl was another area, in Bridgend, and I live in Pembrokeshire and I have no doubt that it would be the same there. So, I think there's a whole programme here of education about people coming and enjoying our scenery. We want them to do that because they bring in huge amounts of income, but what we don't want is for them to leave their rubbish behind, which then costs the local authority significant sums of money. I think there's a piece of work that might be worth doing—and perhaps it is being done—when we look at the disposable cups. I think that they make up a significant amount of litter that is then having a cost implication to be picked up, which the taxpayer is actually forking out for.

Whilst we're on the subject of congratulating, I want to congratulate people in Harlech, who are looking towards moving to a plastic-free area, and the chip shop in Cardigan that gave me a cardboard container instead of a polystyrene one, and offered it as a choice. Everybody that was given that choice whilst I was there took that option.