trade bodies and local authorities to help businesses and Trading Standards officers be ready for the new rules.

Plastic pollution takes hundreds of years to break down and inflicts serious damage on our ocean, rivers and land. It is also a source of greenhouse gas emissions, from its production and manufacture to the way it is disposed. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Elsewhere, the Government’s hugely successful single-use carrier bag charge has cut sales in the main supermarkets by more than 98% since its introduction in 2015, taking billions of bags out of circulation. Research shows people across England use 2.7 billion items of mostly plastic single-use cutlery and 721 million single-use plates every year, but only 10% of these are recycled. If 2.7 billion pieces of cutlery were lined up, they would go round the world more than eight-and-a-half times. Responses from the public to the consultation on the ban demonstrated overwhelming support, with 95% in favour of all prohibitions. People and businesses want to do the right thing for the environment and banning these items will be a significant help in reducing plastic waste and littering – plastic cutlery, for instance, was in the top 15 most littered items in the country in 2020. We’ve been pleased to work with the Government to ensure these new bans and restrictions are also practical for hospitality businesses, all while working towards the nation’s sustainability goals. Hospitality businesses have made huge strides in reducing their plastic usage and that progress has resulted in the vast majority of venues already eliminating single-use cutlery from their operations, a crucial part of our ambitions to reach net zero.

But there is still more to do, which is why the Government is bringing in a deposit return scheme for drinks containers to recycle billions more plastic bottles and stop them being landfilled, incinerated or littered, alongside plans to simplify recycling collections for every household and business in England.