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Agenda item

SINGLE USE PLASTICS POLICY

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Strategic Leadership, Culture, Tourism and Climate Change sought approval of a Single Use Plastics (SUP) Policy to reduce the use of plastics which were used once or for a short period of time before being disposed of, and to recognise the implications of this policy.

 

The Council was leading a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reduce carbon emissions generated in Derbyshire and wanted to go further to fulfil its climate and carbon reduction pledges and to deliver its Climate Change Strategy.  This included building on measures already put in place to remove SUPs from catering at County Hall and minimising the use of SUPs across all the Council’s operations.

 

SUPs could be described as any disposable plastic item that was designed to be used only once or for a short period of time, used in packaging, consumer products, cosmetics, personal protective equipment and healthcare products.  Appendix 2 gave a comprehensive list of SUPs used by the Council.

 

The report gave details of fossil fuel use in the production of almost all plastics, carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and where plastics end up.  It was recognised that there was a need to develop alternatives to plastic through supporting research and innovation and to develop the circular economy to ensure SUPs were not end products, but part of a cycle.  There were also several voluntary initiatives aimed at changing the way that plastics were designed, produced, used, re-used, disposed of and reprocessed by all stakeholders in the plastics chain: examples of these were listed.

 

The Council’s draft policy, could be found at Appendix 3 and sought to

reduce SUPs in new procurements and the on-going contract management of existing contracts. It also recognised that there would be justifiable reasons where the use of SUPs could not be reduced or removed and it was anticipated that there might be additional costs incurred when seeking alternatives.

 

An action plan was produced setting out key actions for implementing the policy; implementation might place additional responsibilities on procurement, waste and climate change officers and for additional staffing resource to support delivery of the outcomes (this would be subject to a business case and approval by the Climate Change and Environment Programme Board).

 

It was proposed that the SUP Policy was monitored and reviewed annually and that a progress report was presented to Cabinet after the first review.

 

RESOLVED to (1) approve the Single Use Plastics Policy; (2) receive a further report presenting the resource implications of thisPolicy; and (3) receive a further report providing an update on the Single Use Plastics Policy in duecourse.

The Council’s draft policy, could be found at Appendix 3 and sought to

reduce SUPs in new procurements and the on-going contract management of existing contracts. It also recognised that there would be justifiable reasons where the use of SUPs could not be reduced or removed and it was anticipated that there might be additional costs incurred when seeking alternatives.

 

An action plan was produced setting out key actions for implementing the policy; implementation might place additional responsibilities on procurement, waste and climate change officers and for additional staffing resource to support delivery of the outcomes (this would be subject to a business case and approval by the Climate Change and Environment Programme Board).

 

It was proposed that the SUP Policy was monitored and reviewed annually and that a progress report was presented to Cabinet after the first review.

 

RESOLVED to (1) approve the Single Use Plastics Policy; (2) receive a further report presenting the resource implications of thisPolicy; and (3) receive a further report providing an update on the Single Use Plastics Policy in duecourse.

 

Supporting documents: