Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 18 May 2022.
Yes, absolutely, Sam, and that hits the nail on the head, doesn't it, really? Because this is about the climate and nature emergencies, but it's also about changing the mindset to see that as an opportunity, an economic opportunity, a tourism opportunity and a whole series of services opportunities, as opposed to a barrier to that kind of thing. I think we've worked really hard to do that with our local authorities across Wales, and with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and its various iterations. I know you played a pivotal part in much of that in your previous role too. So, we continue to work very hard with our local authority partnerships and regions to do some of this work. And then just to give one small example of how these things snowball, I'm very pleased that Wales retains its third-in-the-world on recycling, and we're about to roll that out to businesses in Wales. We've got a lot of positive consultation back from businesses whose mindsets have really changed over the last five years or so; their customers want them to be better in this space, with the whole global view of packaging that's completely changed in the last five years.
But off the back of the recycled material that we're now able to provide in Wales to re-processors, we are getting re-processor requests to come here to Wales and put new plants in Wales for recycled material that we don't even have yet. So, they're saying, 'If you collected this particular material, separately as well, then we could use it in Wales to create jobs and economic opportunities', particularly in places like the Mersey Dee Alliance, because of the wealth of material that would be got from a collection regime there. So, it's just one example, and there are many others, of the snowballing effect economically of doing the right thing for both the climate and nature emergencies, and I really look forward to working with local authorities to identify a lot more.