Group 7: Products made of oxo-degradable and oxo-biodegradable plastic (Amendments 34, 20, 22)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:13 pm on 6 December 2022.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 5:13, 6 December 2022

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. Thank you very much. Just speaking in support of Jenny's points, to probe the Minister a little further, one of the things that the Co-op particularly say is that they work with local authorities on this, that it is compostable. They've strenuously avoided the issue of degradable, because they say, 'Well, this is actually at the cutting edge, it will go into the compost heap, it will degrade', and so on. So, I just want to test the Minister a little bit further to see what her thoughts are on this and where the science currently is, as to whether this is a solution or whether it is, in effect, a solution to a question that was being asked previously—yesterday's solution, if you like.

But also, in addition to that, if this isn't the solution, if there is an intention to ban plastics entirely, and to take plastics out of the system, then how does she work with retailers and manufacturers of a British standard product in order to make sure that they can transition towards other products that will fall within this approach to actually tackle single-use plastics?