TRASHING unusable PPE bought during the pandemic is costing taxpayers £116,000 every day, statistics have revealed.
Officials oversaw the destruction of 230,000 pallets of substandard face masks in the first half of the year at a cost of £21million.
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It was revealed after a written parliamentary question by Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh.
She said: “The amount of money that was wasted by the Government on un-usable PPE during the pandemic is shocking.
“It is even more shocking that the Government are still spending millions of pounds to destroy the PPE that they themselves had bought.
“The waste is shameful and toxic. It is money that could have gone to supporting people throughout the cost of living crisis and we are paying for their poor decision making.”
The Department of Health is footing the bill.
A spokesman said last night: “We continue to repurpose and recycle excess PPE in the most cost-effective way.
“To reduce the cost to the taxpayer of storage, particularly for stock that is likely to become out-of-date before it is ever used, we have accelerated the speed of disposal through energy from waste processes.”