To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for his assessment of the merits of introducing a ban on black plastic packaging.

Black plastic packaging has previously received attention as a problem for recycling facilities. However, since the issue was first identified there have been many changes that would make introducing a ban on black plastic packaging unwise and have a disproportionate impact for a declining problem.

You may already have noticed that a number of manufactures have started to use alternatives to black plastic packaging where possible. Many of the big brand manufacturers and retailers that have signed up to the UK Plastics Pact (representing more than 85% of plastic packaging sold through supermarkets) gave an undertaking to do this by the end of 2019. Black plastic packaging would have represented roughly 7% of packaging in 2016 but this has now fallen to around 3.7% by the end of 2019.

That said, a risk of removing all black plastic could also result in less recycled plastic being used. Black plastic is very good at masking the imperfections that typically occur when plastic is recycled or when coloured plastics are mixed for recycling. However, the industry has looked at solutions to this. Unilever who use black plastic packaging as a “brand signature” for some of their product ranges developed a detectable pigment to add to the black plastic to enable it to be captured and sorted by recyclers and they then made this technology freely available to other manufacturers.

According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) who lead on the UK Plastics Pact, the majority of black plastic on the shelves is now made from detectable pigments and an estimated 19,212 tonnes of non-recyclable plastics trays have been removed from shelves in 2019 (equivalent to 23 trays per person in the UK). These have been replaced with clear plastics trays/non-pigmented trays and detectable black pigmented trays.

I hope you are reassured that the issue of recycling of black plastic is being addressed and that a ban would not be appropriate at this time.