Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:25 pm on 12 December 2018.
Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I commend the Member. I know she has a passionate interest in this area, and is amongst the most authentic and early voices, indeed, in urging better public policy. I completely agree with the basic concepts of the circular economy, and packaging, in particular, is a real challenge, and we need to rethink. I'm old enough to remember when you used to go to the fruit area and just take a bag in, an old Hessian bag, and there was nothing around the fruit and the veg—it was just weighed and piled in. And it does need a different outlook to do that, but it's this slower food movement coming to slower shopping, perhaps.
I also want to commend the Welsh Government in terms of its initiative in the summer on making us a refill nation, just looking at drinking water, where we access water, having more free points where water bottles, preferably non-plastic ones, can be refilled. I want to commend Llantwit Major, which I believe is the first town to adopt this on the coastal path route. Other councils have looked at schemes. I know Penarth Town Council were doing this, and encouraging various shops and cafes to be part of the scheme. What I think there is really interesting is that town and community councils can be in the lead, and that's, I think, very innovative.
Can I also commend the British Heart Foundation? I recently visited their furniture store in Canton, where they take in donated furniture and clean it up, re-upholster it and make it ready for reuse. I was amazed when I went in there by how professional that service was, how good the products are and how reasonably priced. So, it can meet many social objectives in allowing people access to good-quality furniture at a tenth of the price, often, of what they would pay retail. Obviously, for that charity, they can get some of their core messages across as well. So, I thought that was a very, very innovative model.
Finally, to come in under three minutes, I believe the Commission took up plastic-free July. I know the Welsh Government has been looking at this as well—how we can eradicate single-use containers, and that's, I think, now at a pace, use of straws, and the like. So, there are many, many little wins that I think we should be making individually, and encouraging wherever we work, whether it's out there in the private sector or other public agencies, to adopt these sorts of policies, and it will add to big shift in our performance in this area. But well done, Jenny.