Ocean Plastics Tax
The UK Treasury is starting considereing taxes / charges on single-use plastics such as takeaway cartoons and packaging.
The introduction just over two years ago of a 5p charge on single-use plastic bags led to an 85% reduction in their use inside six months.
An estimated 12m tonnes of plastic enters the oceans each year, and residues are routinely found in fish, sea birds and marine mammals. This week it emerged that plastics had been discovered even in creatures living seven miles beneath the sea.
More than a million birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die each year from eating or getting tangled in plastic waste.
The BBC series Blue Planet II has highlighted the scale of plastic debris in the oceans. In the episode to be broadcast this Sunday, albatrosses try to feed plastic to their young, and a pilot whale carries her dead calf with her for days in mourning. Scientists working with the programme believed the mother’s milk was made poisonous by pollution.
The Treasury’s announcement is only a statement of intent, but it recognises the significance of the problem and the urgent need for a solution.