– in the Scottish Parliament at on 18 January 2018.
On what is perhaps a more consensual note, I congratulate Sorcha Cantwell, who is in the public gallery today, who has been recognised by Keep Scotland Beautiful as a clean up Scotland hero for the time that she has dedicated to cleaning up plastic pollution on our beaches. Will the First Minister explain how the Scottish Government can best encourage and support such individual, community and sectoral initiatives—for example, by supplying equipment—to help us all to tackle this global problem?
I thank Claudia Beamish for raising that. I, too, take the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of
Sorcha Cantwell, which serves as a reminder that we all have a responsibility to do more to tackle the throwaway culture and the issue of plastics, particularly in our seas. The Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform has just met Ms Cantwell to discuss the work that she has been doing.
As I said last week, the Scottish Government has been leading the way in taking action for some time now. We have already introduced a more comprehensive carrier bag charge and we will develop a deposit return scheme for Scotland. Last week, Roseanna Cunningham announced plans to ban the manufacture and sale of plastic cotton buds, and we will become the first country in the United Kingdom to do so. We are also currently considering how to tackle the issues of plastic straws and disposable coffee cups.
I know that there is a need to go even further. On Tuesday, the Cabinet discussed how we can continue to make sure that Scotland is a leader in tackling the issue, which is such a blight on our environment.