6. Question No. 6—EnvironmentTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for the EnvironmentQuestion No. 6—Environment6. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for the Environment: What announcements has the Government made regarding the reduction of waste?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): This week the Government has delivered on its promise to phase out problem plastics and some single-use plastics by 2025. We'll be phasing out hard-to-recycle food and drink packaging made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene and some degradable plastic products. We'll be phasing out single-use plastic items such as drink stirrers; cotton buds; single-use produce bags; single-use plastic cutlery plates and bowls; as well as non-compostable plastic labels. We've made good progress over the last three years and there's strong public and business support for the 2019 plastic-bag ban which has meant that more than 1 billion fewer plastic bags have ended up in our landfills or ocean and we know that New Zealanders are ready to do more.Tangi Utikere: Why has the Government acted to phase out problem plastics?Hon DAVID PARKER: In the case of PVC and some degradable plastics they can't be practicably distinguished and recycled compared with other alternatives. And so what happens in practice is they contaminate the recycling of other plastics so we've got to manage them out of the system. Other single-use items often end up as waste in landfills or cause pollution. New Zealand's not got a very good record in this regard and we need to do a lot better. We're one of the worst in the OECD in terms of the plastic waste per capita. We think that New Zealanders support change. We consulted on these changes 8000 people and businesses responded and the vast majority supported the proposals. We think phasing out unnecessary and problematic plastics will help reduce waste improve recycling and move us towards a circular economy.Tangi Utikere: How will the Government support innovation and research into alternatives to problem plastics?Hon DAVID PARKER: The Government has delivered on a number of the Labour Party's election promises at the time of the last election by launching the $50 million Plastics Innovation Fund which will help support projects to improve how we make use recycle and dispose of plastics. This will fund innovative New Zealanders to help identify the solutions that we need and then help them to scale up so that we can get them into commercial use. The fund will find ways to use less plastic to make what we do recyclable for the benefit of the environment but it'll also have job benefits and support the economy. Projects designing out waste in products and packaging or to adopt and scale up existing technologies through to switching materials and developing recycling solutions not currently available can all be considered. We expect that the fund which opens later this year will attract a range of applicants from research institutes businesses and community groups. The Government's committed to making good progress to a lower-waste low-emissions economy.Hon Eugenie Sage: In the absence of a Government decision to phase out wet wipes will the Minister ask the Commerce Commission to investigate misleading advertising which claims that wet wipes are flushable when they are not; and if not why not?Hon DAVID PARKER: I haven't given consideration to the Commerce Act angle—I'm happy to think about that. The member is right to point out that we do have more work to do in respect of wet wipes. They're not only causing very significant costly problems for local government and their sewerage infrastructure if as I'm sure the member knows you visit natural places and tissue paper and toilet paper degrades in rain but these plastic equivalents last forever and we need to eventually phase them out. I think we will eventually phase them out but we need alternatives that are biodegradable to be readily available so that people who have legitimate uses of these can get what they need. In the meantime people using them should not flush them; they should dispose of them in rubbish bins.