It was moved by Councillor Sarah Hall and seconded by Cllr Andy Fewings that;

This Council notes that

A) Lancashire County Council has already passed a motion to ban the use of -single use-plastics (“SUP”) within its estate, setting the standard for the County [1];

B) whilst SUPs items are cheap, convenient, and readily available, the growing production and disposal of them has had major impacts on the environment and biodiversity [2];

C) oceans and Britain’s iconic watercourses [3] are becoming increasingly polluted, as highlighted in recent TV programmes like the BBC programme Blue Planet 2, and marine life in particular is suffering because 8 million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in the world’s oceans each year [4];

D) the disposal of plastic waste produces chemicals known to be carcinogenic [5], and micro plastics are present in the food chain as they are ingested by animals [6]; and

E) only 30% of plastic waste is currently recycled, with China recently banning the import of landfill and recycling, leaving countries having to finally take responsibility for their waste [7].

This Council believes that:

i) reducing the consumption of unnecessary (i.e. excluding medical items) SUPs (“USUPs”) is vital to protecting the environment we live in

ii) having passed a Climate Emergency Motion to tackle carbon emissions, it follows that the Council should become as environmentally sound as possible

iii) it is its responsibility to model and encourage more behaviour within the Borough to protect the environment

This Council resolves to:

1) conduct an in-depth audit of all items used within the council estate for USUPs and publish the results to the public by 30 April 2020

2) thereafter, complete annual audits of the councils’ USUP use, and publish these results to the public annually, no later than the 30 April in each year

3) end the procurement and use of USUPs, including (but not limited to) cups,

cutlery, water bottles, stirrers and straws, within all Council run operations, premises and events by March 31, 2020

4) include, as a condition of any new licence to occupy, lease or other tenancy or other disposal of council premises, a provision that no USUPs will be generated or permitted at such premises

5) include, as a condition of any new council contract, a provision that no USUPs will be generated or permitted in the Borough

6) assess the councils’ supply chain, and switch to businesses that are as USUP-free as possible

7) encourage local businesses (including Burnley Market and Burnley FC) to phase out and stop their use of USUPs

8) carry out a feasibility study to identify (i) a space owned by this Council within the Borough to house a zero-waste [8] community run co-operative shop with rent and rate incentives and (ii) for siting of refill stations, to discourage the purchase of USUP bottles

9) facilitate education programmes to the public to discourage the use of USUP References

[1] http://council.lancashire.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=144764

[2]https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25496/singleUsePlastic_sustainability.

pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[3] https://friendsoftheearth.uk/plastics/plastic-problem

[4] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768

[5] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2009.0053#sec-5

[6] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/food-microplastics-eating-plasticpollution-

environment-a8395556.html

[7] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/climate-change-china-bans-import-of-foreign-waste-tostop-

pollution.html

 [8] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/21/the-zero-waste-revolution-how-anew-

wave-of-shops-could-end-excess-packaging

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 12- Motions on Expenditure- as this item would have the effect of materially increasing the expenditure or reduce the revenue of the Council or involve capital expenditure, the motion was REFERRED to the Executive without discussion to consider and report back to a future meeting of the Full Council.