Welsh Government, local authorities, citizens and communities have worked in partnership to deliver a high recycling society. Nearly every household has kerbside collection for recycling, including separate collections of food waste. Since devolution we have spent almost £1 billion on waste and recycling in Wales. 

Last year, several local authorities struggled to maintain recycling rates for two principal reasons. Most of the drop is a result of us making the monitoring and reporting of wood waste recycling stricter. There has also been an issue with the functioning of a fuel from waste plant, resulting in the landfilling of some waste. This meant the authorities lost the opportunity to recycle incinerator bottom ash.

I'm meeting those councils that failed to meet the 58 per cent target for this year, and all of those at risk of failing to meet the 64 per cent target next year, to talk about specific plans for assistance in those areas. The Welsh Government is working with local authorities to ensure comprehensive plans to assist them to meet future recycling targets. We have maintained support for recycling through specific grants and funding a range of initiatives to support local authority efforts.

We've come a long way on waste in Wales in what is a relatively short period of time, but improving recycling rates from here will require more concerted, intensive and demanding interventions. Welsh Government is spending £0.5 million this year working in partnership with local authorities and WRAP on a behaviour change campaign, as we know that more than half of the waste put in black bins is recyclable. We need to persuade the Welsh public not to put these materials in their residual bins but to recycle them.

The campaign has three parts: providing the right services for the public, making people aware of what they need to do, and enforcing the right behaviours if necessary. There will also be campaigns to persuade the public to recycle more, including one just after Christmas. And today I can announce a package of investment to assist local authorities in improving recycling and driving the circular economy.

Firstly, I am pleased to be able to commit a further £15.5 million investment over the next three years to enable three more authorities to align with our collections blueprint. This forms part of the collaborative change programme being delivered by WRAP, and will support the Vale of Glamorgan, Denbighshire and Pembrokeshire. In addition to this, the £2.8 million cut to the recycling grant to local authorities has been reinstated in the draft budget. Finally, I can announce £50 million over three years to support service changes and provide new infrastructure in Wales. I am clear that focusing on infrastructure investment is a top priority going forward. This will help to tackle inconsistency in what is recycled and the amount local authorities pay to recycle it, improve the quality of recyclate and boost the circular economy in Wales.

We're working with partners in local government to develop a new infrastructure procurement programme, which could include materials like mattresses, nappies, wood and textiles. I intend to work with partners on potential new statutory guidance to local authorities and will consult next year on our long-term approach to recycling targets, including looking at options around the penalties for failing to meet targets. New best-practice guidance will be shared to help every local authority reach recycling targets.

We expect these actions will get Wales on track to reach and exceed 70 per cent recycling by 2025. But we will not stop there. In 2019 we will consult on regulations under Part 4 of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 that will require businesses to separate their waste in a similar way to that which households already do. Next year, we will produce a revised 'Towards Zero Waste' and a route-map for a circular economy for consultation. Supporting our shift towards a more circular economy is our priority—a Wales where materials can be used again and again, creating added value and multiple benefits. We know that there are economic as well as environmental advantages. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, WRAP and the Green Alliance have all identified that jobs and investment opportunities can be created in Wales as we move to a circular economy, and our economic action plan, which we published last year, recognised the dividends for our economy, jobs and skills.

The revised strategy and route-map will also reflect our aim to have a circular economy in terms of the materials we consume, such as plastics, and how we use, reuse, dispose of and reprocess these. Next year, our £6.5 million circular economy investment fund will be open to businesses to support them working towards a more circular plastics economy in Wales, and this should stimulate some innovation in this important area.

Some big, strategic interventions are planned on an England-and-Wales basis, including changing extended producer responsibility for packaging, which would cover some of the costs to local authorities of managing packaging materials. It would also tackle waste at its source, reducing the use of excess packaging by producers, and increase the use of recycled and recyclable materials in packaging.

Work also continues on the development of a deposit-return scheme. WRAP has already analysed the potential impact of a DRS on recycling rates and local authority income from recycling in Wales. We have asked them for more detailed modelling by the end of the year. I have also commissioned an analysis of litter types and levels in Wales, so we have a baseline against which any DRS could be measured. This final report will be published in spring 2019. We've asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to boost the sample in Wales for a survey they are carrying out on public attitudes to a DRS, and to make sure children in Wales are included in the research. We will consult, alongside UK Government, on both EPR and DRS, before Christmas, providing our unique Welsh input and ensuring the proposed approaches work for Wales.

Over the past 12 months, we've been pushing the UK to really set the agenda on single-use plastic. This is an area where we feel action at a UK level is the best course of action. My colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, has discussed this issue with the Chief Secretary of the Treasury on three occasions. He has shared with UK Government our positive view of the role of tax in reducing the use of single-use plastics, as well as our view that any tax should take the broadest form possible—not just looking at a single item like coffee cups.

We promoted the HM Treasury call for evidence in Wales to help ensure the views of Welsh businesses and organisations were taken into account, and that we have assessed the evidence submitted by stakeholders in Wales to help identify the potential benefits, issues and impacts of introducing new tax measures in this area. We continue to work with UK Government to discuss progress on potential taxation measures and to contribute Welsh views about the development of options that reflect Welsh priorities.

We expect to see the Chancellor deliver on the expectations he has raised in his budget next week. And we expect to be closely involved in any implementation arrangements. Any plastics tax must be co-designed with Welsh Government. If nothing is raised in the autumn budget on 29 October, this will be a significant missed opportunity, and we will consider again what can be done on a Wales-only basis with the levers we have, including the possibility of a Wales-wide levy or charge on single-use beverage containers.

Wales leads the way on recycling in the UK, but we are not complacent. We want to continue to work together with WRAP, local authorities and the people of Wales to move from first in the UK to first in the world. I am sure that Members across the Senedd will join with me in reflecting on our success to date and setting our sights even higher in the future.