In preparation for this debate—it was on the agenda—I had a very angry e-mail from the leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council. He said, 'Hefin, I hope you are going to mention what Caerphilly council is doing. You should always get in touch with me to find out what we're doing because we're doing great things in Caerphilly.' And sure enough, I did, I found out. And what Caerphilly council has done is to establish a plastics challenge project group, which consists of a number of its own officers, together with representation from the Welsh Government, WRAP Cymru and Eunomia Research. They are considering the issue of problematic plastics, particularly in the context of waste management and waste prevention. I look forward to hearing more about the report from that group from Caerphilly council when next I meet with the leader, Councillor Dave Poole. 

Caerphilly council have also introduced watercourse environmental clean-ups, a statutory cleansing service that clears over 1,000 tonnes of plastic a year, and a weekly recycling service that collects 20,000 tonnes for reprocessing—amongst other things. Caerphilly council is taking action. And I should also mention Anna McMorrin MP, who introduced a Bill in Parliament to require producers of packaging products to assume responsibility for collection, transportation, recycling, disposal and recovery of plastic products. And Jenny Rathbone had, a few weeks ago, a Member's legislative proposal along those lines too, to which I contributed and from which I took much inspiration for what I'm saying today.

I forgot to mention plastic bags. The Welsh Government were pioneers when it came to plastic bags, but did you know that Kenya has some of the toughest anti-plastic laws in the world? In Kenya, you could face a four-year jail term for producing, selling or using a plastic bag. I'm not suggesting we go that far—I'm not suggesting we go that far, but countries are taking it seriously. We led the way here in Wales and we should be proud of that.

There's another country that Wales could learn from and which we could take examples from, and that's Costa Rica. In 2015 a video of a marine biologist pulling plastic from the nose of a sea turtle went viral—in Costa Rica. This prompted action to be taken. Since then, Costa Rica's gained a reputation for being eco-friendly and powered itself on 100 per cent renewable energy for two thirds of the year in 2016. Now Costa Rica's next aim is to become the first country to ban all single-use plastics by 2021, including cutlery, bottles and bags. To meet this very ambitious deadline, the Government are offering incentives to businesses as well as researching alternatives to single-use plastics. Now, Costa Rica's not a big country but it's bigger than Wales, and we should be looking at them to inspire the ambition we have to deal with plastics.

We must, though, focus on what we can do closer to home. As I've mentioned, there's a lot of good work being done by the Welsh Government and by local authorities. Last week, the Marine Conservation Society held an event in Tŷ Hywel that was well attended by Members. Again, I'll say, Jenny Rathbone, I saw your video—recycling the plastic bottle and getting a receipt for it. This deposit-refund system—drinks bottles and cans and their tops make around 10 per cent of litter and a deposit-refund scheme can then enable us to, or encourage us to recycle, for which we get a receipt and possibly money off shopping. That creates the habit—the habit of recycling plastic. 

The introduction of a true, extended producer responsibility system, ensuring producers are fully responsible for the recovery, recycling and disposal of their products, including any costs incurred through litter prevention and clean-ups, would be welcome. At present, the UK system means that only about 10 per cent of these costs are borne by the producers, while the rest is falling as a burden on the taxpayer. 

Finally, the one we've talked about most: a levy on disposable drinks cups. Such a levy would encourage reduction in consumption, in line with the principles of waste hierarchy, in turn leading to a decrease in litter, and that is something that I would support.

We've led the way in so many areas—food hygiene, food waste management, and we have ambitious plans to become the world's first refill nation. What better way to cement this progress and our growing reputation than to tackle plastic waste? I urge the Minister in her response to consider some of the things I've talked about today, and I look forward to hearing what other Members have to say about progress we can make.