Meeting of the Parliament 07 February 2018
I welcome the Scottish Government’s motion for debate today, and I add Labour’s voice to the call to ban single-use plastics in Scotland by 2030.
If we were to visualise our own individual trails of plastic waste, we would all be horrified—and now many of us have done so. Now that the conversation about single-use plastic is wide open, we can identify more products that are so unnecessarily single use, such as water bottles, straws, cotton buds, microbeads in cosmetics, wet wipes and many more. I was recently contacted by a constituent who highlighted the wastefulness of crisp packets, and that has stressed to me how the issue is at the forefront of collective consciousness.
Reducing the use of such items is the first step, and I reiterate my support for the developing bans. The alternatives are already there, and they are often money saving, too—for example, KeepCups, bags for life and menstrual cups. While I was a teacher at a primary school in South Lanarkshire, the pupils brought in proper water bottles from home to refill at the tap, rather than having them delivered every day from the council. This week, the EU has announced that it will oblige national Governments to provide greater access to drinking fountains in order to clamp down on plastic waste.
Some packaging does not even have information on it about whether it is recyclable, such as the cup that I have here, which I mention without shaming any particular supermarket. Therefore one challenge for the regulators is to set the standard for what is on the bottom of packets.
I congratulate all the private sector initiatives that are tackling the issue. Among others, the Scotch Whisky Association has committed to phasing out plastic straws and stirrers, and that is on top of its commitment for all the industry’s packaging to be 100 per cent recyclable by 2020.
Action by the public sector is vital, too. Catherine McClymont, one of our councillors in South Lanarkshire, is leading on a motion to address single-use plastics. I encourage others in the public sector to follow suit.