Gove announces renewed resource strategy

Speaking at WWF UK on Friday (21 July) on ‘Delivering a Green Brexit’, Mr Gove outlined policies aimed at reducing the amount of plastic entering oceans, improving incentives for reducing waste and litter and a review of the penalties available to deal with polluters.

“We are developing expertise in new areas from Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles to waste management, supported by wise leadership from the ministerial team at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,” said Mr Gove.

He also highlighted how the government could adopt new ways of incentivising recycling based on “the environmental impact and value of the material, rather than a crude weight-based target that focuses recycling on things that happen to be heavy”.

Ocean plastics

In his speech to WWF, Mr Gove also focused on preventing sources of plastic making their way into our oceans and seas, focusing on the government’s 5p charge on plastic bags and the incoming legislation on the ban of selling and manufacturing microbeads.

As part of the government’s Litter Strategy, an expert group is exploring ways to reduce the use of commonly littered items and are weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of different types of deposit and reward, and return schemes.

Mr Gove also plans to bring forward legislation against littering from vehicles. And the government is expected to publish its response to a consultation into increasing the fixed penalty fine for littering.

A Green Brexit

The renewed waste and resource strategy is part of the government’s wider ambitions to make the UK a world leader in environmental protection, despite its departure from the EU.

Commenting on how the EU has been a force for good environmentally, Mr Gove said: “I have no intention of weakening the environmental protections we have put in place while in the EU.”

Adding to that, Mr Gove explained that the EU has not always protected the planet and that he believed that “this country is more than capable of bringing in our own strong legislation to protect the environment, independent of the EU”.

When pointing to a greener future, Mr Gove mentioned that Britain was “fortunate to have in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs a team of scientists, economists, policy specialists and analysts second to none”.