England’s new ban on single-use plastics sounds good – but it is a surrender to big business

‘There are few pollutants more insidious – or urgent to tackle – than plastic.’ Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Two years after the government banned plastic straws, cotton buds and microbeads in some beauty products in England, Thérèse Coffey is set to ban single-use plastic plates, cutlery and polystyrene cups. That means possibly 1.1bn plates and 4.25bn items of cutlery in England will no longer be made each year.

That sounds impressive, as if the environment secretary is getting on top of the plastics that are used only once but last for centuries, breaking down into innumerable tiny pieces and polluting rivers and seas in the process. But the new ban barely scratches the surface of a problem that has been known about for decades and is now out of control.