Plans to increase recycling rates and slash the amount of waste polluting the land and sea have been welcomed by South Derbyshire's MP.
Heather Wheeler has praised a consultation on a deposit return scheme for recycling, which could be introduced later this year.
UK consumers go through an estimated 13 billion plastic drinks bottles a year, and more than three billion are incinerated, sent to landfill or left to pollute streets, countryside and marine environment, the MP said.
The consultation will look at the details of how such a scheme would work, alongside other measures to increase recycling rates.
Similar schemes already operate in countries such as Denmark, Germany and Sweden. A deposit return scheme sees consumers pay an up-front deposit when they buy a drink, ranging from eight pence in Sweden to 22 pence in Germany, which is redeemed on return of the empty drink container. Variations of a deposit return scheme in this country could include cash rewards for returning drinks containers without an upfront deposit.
In other countries schemes include a network of "reverse vending machines", where people insert the plastic or glass bottle or can back into the machine once they have finished with it in return for a cash deposit. Once a bottle is returned, businesses are then responsible for making sure they are effectively recycled – a move that has led to a 97 per cent recycling rate in Germany.
Mrs Wheeler said: "This is such an important announcement and particularly for future generations.
"The amount of waste polluting our land and seas remains a great source of frustration for residents all over South Derbyshire and I had first-hand experience of this when I helped out with the Great British Litter Pick in Church Gresley last weekend.
"The Government is working to leave our planet in a better state for the next generation, with cleaner air, greener spaces, stronger protections for animal welfare and tougher action on plastic waste."
The announcement is the latest move in the Government crackdown on plastic, following the plastic microbead ban, which has been hailed as one of the world's strongest bans and the five pence plastic bag charge – which has led to nine billion fewer bags distributed. It also follows the recent call for evidence by HM Treasury on taxes and charges to reduce waste from single-use plastics, so that all relevant findings can be fed into the proposals.
Environment secretary Michael Gove said: "We can be in no doubt that plastic is wreaking havoc on our marine environment – killing dolphins, choking turtles and degrading our most precious habitats. It is absolutely vital we act now to tackle this threat and curb the millions of plastic bottles a day that go unrecycled.
"We have already banned harmful microbeads and cut plastic bag use, and now we want to take action on plastic bottles to help clean up our oceans."
