UK Target 16: The UK will ensure that people are encouraged and enabled to make sustainable consumption choices, including by establishing supportive policy, legislative or regulatory frameworks, improving education and access to relevant and accurate information and alternatives, and by 2030, reduce the global footprint of consumption in an equitable manner, including through halving global food waste, significantly reducing overconsumption and substantially reducing waste generation, in order for all people to live well in harmony with Mother Earth.[1]

Commitments:

UK

• We will introduce a mandatory labelling regime to make it easier for consumers to understand how to recycle packaging correctly.

England

• We will ensure that by 31 December 2042, the total mass of residual waste excluding major mineral waste for the calendar year 2042 does not exceed 287kg per capita—roughly the same as a 50% reduction from 2019 levels—with interim targets to ensure that:
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual waste excluding major mineral waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 437kg per capita (24% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual waste excluding major mineral waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 25.5 million tonnes (21% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 333kg per capita (29% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal food waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 64kg per capita (50% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal plastic waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 42kg per capita (45% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal paper and card waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 74kg per capita (26% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal metal waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 10kg per capita (42% reduction).
  • by December 2030, the total mass of residual municipal glass waste in the most recent full calendar year does not exceed 7kg per capita (48% reduction).
• We will reduce the use of public water supply in England per head of population from a 2019 to 2020 baseline by 9% by 31 March 2027; and by 14% by 31 March 2032.
• We will reduce household water use to 122 litres per person per day by 2038 from a 2019 to 2020 baseline.
• We will reduce non-household water use by 9% by 2038.
• We will reduce water leakage from a 2017 to 2018 baseline by 20% by 31 March 2027; and by 30% by 31 March 2032.
• We will ensure water companies deliver their water resources management plans, eliminating the water supply demand gap that grows to five billion litres a day by 2050.
• We will reduce illegal waste sites from 2023 to 2024 levels by 2029 to 2030.
• We will reduce fly-tipping incidents from local authority reported 2023 to 2024 levels by 2029 to 2030.
• We will publish the circular economy growth plan in early 2026, followed by its implementation.

Scotland

• In January 2024, the Scottish Government published a draft Circular Economy and Waste Route Map to 2030 for consultation, with actions across the waste hierarchy to drive sustainable resource use and lay the foundations for a circular economy in Scotland.
• The Circular Economy and Waste Route Map includes a proposal to set new circular economy targets from 2025, and a range of priority actions to drive responsible production and consumption, reduce waste, drive greater reuse, modernise recycling services, and decarbonise disposal.
• The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 introduces measures that require primary legislation to transition to a circular economy and modernise Scotland’s waste and recycling services.
• In December 2025, Scotland banned the landfilling of biodegradable municipal waste.
• To minimise emissions from landfills, we intend to roll out the next programme of work seeking to improve landfill gas capture rates at closed landfill sites, reducing the impact of biodegradable waste already landfilled.
• To drive decarbonisation of energy from waste, we have set a clear ambition to end the unnecessary incineration of plastics, setting out measures through the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map to support sector decarbonisation.
• In 2023, Food Standards Scotland reviewed the Scottish Dietary Goals. This allowed for consideration in relation to the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy with regard to “…reduce by at least half the waste and, where relevant the overconsumption, of food and other materials”.
• The Scottish Government published a review of its food waste reduction action plan (January 2024) and, through the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map, set out proposals for a collective reset of our approach to tackling food waste in Scotland. Priority measures include delivering an intervention plan to guide long-term work on household food waste reduction behaviour change (by 2025); and developing with stakeholders the most effective way to implement mandatory reporting for food waste and surplus by businesses (by 2025/26).
• We will reform UK-wide extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for packaging, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries, with the first scheme for packaging to begin from 2025.
• We will develop and publish a Product Stewardship Plan to identify and tackle the environmental impact of priority products (2025/26).
• We will deliver a prioritised approach to the introduction of environmental charges for problematic products (by 2025); and introduce a charge for single-use disposable cups (by 2025).
• We remain committed to the delivery of a successful Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) to increase recycling rates for single use drinks containers to at least 90%.
• In 2021, the £70 million Recycling Improvement Fund was introduced by the Scottish Government to enable local authorities to improve recycling and reuse infrastructure and services across Scotland. More than £60 million has been awarded to 24 local authority projects to improve recycling infrastructure, projected to save over 57,000 tonnes of CO²e per year.

Wales

• Wales has committed to use only its fair share of the world’s resources by 2050. 
• Through our circular economy and resource efficiency policy—as set out in Beyond Recycling Wales—we will:
  • support businesses in Wales to reduce their carbon footprint and become more resource efficient.
  • provide the tools to enable community action.
  • phase out unnecessary single-use items, especially plastic.
  • eradicate avoidable food waste.
  • procure on a basis which prioritises goods and products made from remanufactured, refurbished and recycled materials or which come from low carbon and sustainable materials like wood.
  • strive to achieve the highest recycling rates in the world.
  • reduce the environmental impact of waste collection from homes and businesses.
  • take full responsibility for our waste (e.g. reducing the amount of waste we produce; effectively managing what we create by having the infrastructure we need; ensuring we do not export problem waste elsewhere; and reducing adverse impact of consumption on other countries). 

Northern Ireland

• We will publish a Northern Ireland Circular Economy Strategy to set out our vision to create an innovative, inclusive and competitive economy, with responsible production and consumption at its core.
• We aim to deliver an increase in the recycling of goods and packaging after use by consumers.
• We aim to increase levels of waste electricals for re-use and recycling, to support the drive towards the circular economy. 
• We aim to increase costs being recovered through producer responsibility schemes.
• By 2031, we will increase overall recycling of packaging to 76%.
• From 2025, we will phase in the new UK-wide Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for packaging.
• By 2028, we will increase recycling of drinks containers from 70% to 90%.
• From 2027, we will introduce a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drink containers.
• From 2025, at least 80% of full net costs of packaging will be contributed by producers.
• We will develop a proposal for a consumption reduction plan and targets to be achieved by 2026 for single-use plastic takeaway cups and food containers, to reduce unnecessary waste and tackle plastic pollution.
• We will continue to support programmes aimed at encouraging waste prevention and increasing education and awareness.

UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies 

The Falkland Islands

• We will promote changes to Falklanders’ behaviour, including consumption patterns, to reduce waste and pollution.
• We will use information campaigns and other outreach initiatives/programmes to encourage positive changes in consumer attitudes (e.g. reducing plastics use) and increase environmental awareness.

Gibraltar

• We will achieve a 55% recycling rate for municipal waste by 2035 and zero avoidable waste by 2050.
• We will continue to roll out carbon literacy training to the public sector to help people understand the carbon impact of their decisions.
• We will continue to encourage positive change in consumer behaviour through awareness campaigns and collaboration with NGOs and the private sector. 

Guernsey

• We will continue to implement the Waste Management Strategy, which is based on the Waste Hierarchy.
• We will increase household recycling to 70% by the end of 2030, building upon the progress achieved to reach 68% household recycling by 2022. We will achieve this through a number of measures, including free kerbside recycling and a household charging policy for residual waste. 

The Isle of Man

• By 2025, we will promote responsible and sustainable production and consumption, particularly as it benefits biodiversity here and worldwide, by providing information and advice on best practice, including sustainable procurement.

England

• We will implement Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) to move the cost of dealing with household packaging waste to packaging producers.
• We will instruct PackUK, the pEPR scheme administrator, to recover pEPR money paid to local authorities that are not spent on waste management services. This will ensure sufficient investment for improving recycling performance.
• We will introduce the Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers from October 2027. This will include single-use drinks containers from 150ml to 3 litres made of polyethylene terephthalate plastic, steel, and aluminium.
• We will introduce simpler recycling in England from 2025, ensuring the same recyclable waste streams are collected for recycling from all households and workplaces.
• We will implement the Design for Life roadmap to transition the UK away from all avoidable single-use medical technology products by 2045.
• We will introduce measures to drive the reduction and near-elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill from 2028. We will support this through the collection and packaging reforms. Potential options beyond this include expanding the list of separately collected materials that are banned from landfill without some form of treatment process to include paper and card, food, garden waste, wood and textiles.
• We will introduce separate food waste collections for all households from 2026.
• We will introduce a mandatory water efficiency labelling scheme on water products, such as showers and toilets, in 2026.
• We will review water efficiency, water recycling and drainage standards to tighten standards, and explore opportunities to increase water efficient housing through technological innovation, including piloting water reuse systems in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, to drive increased water efficiency.
• We will review planning policy and processes and investigate water reuse options for new non-household development. We will consider voluntary schemes for non-household buildings and work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local authorities to improve knowledge and guidance of water reuse in planning processes.
• We will work with the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) to hold water companies to leakage reduction targets—set at 17% for 2025 to 2030 in this period —through Ofwat’s rewards and penalties.
• We will rapidly develop critical new water supply infrastructure, supported by a joint team called the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development and the National Framework for Water Resources.
• We will stop criminals using permit exemptions to hide illegal waste activity by removing three permit exemptions and tightening seven more, stop allowing multiple exemptions on a single site or on sites with a permit, and introduce record-keeping requirements.
• We will reform carriers, brokers and dealers’ regulation by moving into the tougher environmental permitting system with stronger penalties to ensure that only the right people can transport and manage waste, making it easier for regulators to act against non-compliant operators.
• We will introduce a digital waste tracking service to modernise existing waste record keeping from 2026 to enable regulators to better detect illegal activity and tackle waste crime.
• We will publish guidance in early 2026 to support local councils to seize and crush more vehicles used for fly-tipping, including using new technologies.
• We will monitor and evaluate progress towards circularity through the circular economy growth plan, showing how we expect government initiatives to effect change and achieve our wider goals and targets.

Scotland

• We recently consulted on our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map, which includes objectives and actions to drive responsible consumption, production and re-use and reduce food waste. This is supported by new measures in our Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024.
• Our Environment Strategy has begun to tackle our global footprint of consumption and is supported by key actions in our Biodiversity Delivery Plan to address unsustainable supply and demand to reduce biodiversity impacts.

Wales

• The Welsh Government has set out how it will support sustainable consumption and a transition to a circular economy in Beyond Recycling. A strategy to make the circular economy in Wales a reality.
• Towards Zero Waste One Wales: One Planet sets out the Welsh Government’s strategy for reducing the impact of waste in Wales to within the country’s environmental limits by 2050.
• The Well-being for Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 includes the sustainable development principle, which requires public bodies to act in a manner which seeks to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• One Planet Development contains Welsh Government policy for ensuring that developments are low impact and either enhance or do not significantly diminish environmental quality.

Northern Ireland

• The Environmental Improvement Plan for Northern Ireland forms the basis for a coherent and effective set of interventions that can collectively deliver real improvements in the quality of the environment. This includes details of how Northern Ireland plans to reduce pollution and prevent unnecessary waste.
• The DAERA Waste Prevention Programme was published in 2020. This programme included new and ongoing actions aimed at improving waste prevention and increasing education and awareness.
• The draft strategy—Rethinking Our Resources: Northern Ireland Resources and Waste Management Strategy—sets out DAERA’s commitment to move Northern Ireland towards a circular approach of reduce, reuse, repair and recycle.
• Northern Ireland will contribute to meeting Sustainable Development Goal 12.3: to halve UK per capita food waste by 2030. Measures will include: working with delivery partners to develop behaviour change campaigns; continued education and awareness raising initiatives to encourage the removal of as much food waste as possible from residual household waste streams; and continuing to work with food redistribution charities to use Northern Ireland’s food surplus to help feed some of the most vulnerable members of society.

UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies

The Falkland Islands

• The Falkland Islands Environment Strategy 2021–2040 sets out the Falkland Islands’ objectives for the next 20 years, so that we can work towards a shared vision for the future of our environment.

Gibraltar

• The 25 Year Environment Plan sets out Gibraltar’s long-term strategy for protecting and enhancing its environment over the next quarter century. It provides a structured framework to guide policy, planning and environmental management.
• The Environmental Governance Act sets out long term targets for sustainability.

Guernsey

• The States of Guernsey Waste Management Plan was approved in 2018 and sets out sustainable waste management through the adoption of the Waste Hierarchy. 

The Isle of Man 

• Managing our Natural Wealth, The Isle of Man's First Biodiversity Strategy 2015–2025 sets out a vision for the future health of our biodiversity, and maps out the framework for action to conserve and enhance our natural richness for the health, enjoyment and economic well-being of all the people of Isle of Man.