Single-use plastic items including cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups are reportedly to be banned in England by the UK government after a consultation.
Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, is poised to unveil plans to phase out the items and replace them with biodegradable alternatives in the coming weeks, according to the Financial Times.
It noted that the Scottish and Welsh governments had already taken similar actions.
It comes after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) held a public consultation on a plan to ban the supply of single-use plastic items and polystyrene food and drink containers. This ran from November 2021 to February this year.
At the end of the consultation, the newspaper claimed the ban was delayed by chaos in Westminster. It has now cited government insiders who reportedly claim that Coffey is preparing to approve the ban.
A ban could have ramifications for the UK’s plastic industry which according to the British Plastics Federation (BPF) had annual sales of over £27bn in 2020 and employed 182,000 people making it the third largest employer in the UK manufacturing sector.
Globally the plastics market was estimated to be valued at $593,000 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 3.7% from 2022 to 2030.
Increased plastic consumption in the construction, automotive, and electrical & electronics industries is projected to support market growth during the forecast period.
Supporting the big names in UK polymer manufacture, for example Ineos, Basell Polyolefins, Sabic, Inovyn and Lotte Chemicals, are a range of specialist materials, masterbatch and additives manufacturers including listed groups such as Victrex PLC (LSE:VCT) which fell 1% today.
It has also implications for the users of plastics dominated by the packaging sector which uses 44.3% of all plastics produced according to the BPF.
One of those users is Bunzl PLC (LSE:BNZL) which on its website has pledged to “work with our customers and suppliers to lead the industry towards a sustainable approach to single-use plastics.”
It said “Plastic pollution is one of the defining challenges of our time.”