Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a new signature piece of legislation that will see the full cost of managing household packaging waste shift from taxpayers to producers.

It is a reform of the existing UK Packaging Waste Regulations that were established in 1997 and, whilst fees do not commence until 2024, businesses are now legally obliged to be collecting new datasets with reporting on that data being mandated from October 2023.

Producers will be taxed to pay the costs of managing household packaging waste with fees being modulated over time, to further incentivise the use of recyclable packaging. These will be payable through new EPR fees which will be levied in addition to PRNs (Packaging Waste Recycling Notes) fees.

By December 2024, eligible businesses will also need to report “Nation Data”, providing further information, including what nation of the United Kingdom that their packaging is anticipated to become waste.

EPR forms part of the Government’s strategy to protect the climate, drive green growth, and drive down unnecessary waste.

Shifting the cost responsibility of processing waste from households to producers is set to encourage a more circular economy, where producers will reuse and recycle more packaging throughout its lifecycle.

The overarching principle behind Extended Producer Responsibility is that the polluter should pay for the waste that they create in society and the Government are therefore implementing this change to force the packaging industry to pick up this cost.

There are some key differences between EPR and historic Packaging Waste Regulations.

At the moment, responsibility for packaging waste is spread across multiple points in the supply chain. However, under new EPR regulations, the responsibility is placed on one producer.

In addition, the financial burden of processing packaging waste will move from council tax waste systems to the responsible producers. Funds raised by the EPR scheme will be redistributed to local authorities by the scheme’s appointed administrator.

Funds raised by the current Packaging Waste Regulations are only used to subsidise UK recycling. Under the new EPR scheme, the full net cost of all elements of packaging processing will be covered. This will include everything from collection, sorting and treatment of packaging waste.

So, in summary, some of the key changes are:

• Single point of compliance – EPR levies 100% responsibility for a piece of packaging on one producer.
• Local authority costs  – the financial burden currently sits with the taxpayer, but will move to obligated packaging producers.
• Full net costs – the current system subsidises recycling, but EPR will recoup and fund the full net costs of all packaging waste collection, treatment and repurposing.
• Eco-modulation – EPR fees will be modulated depending on the type of packaging material and its environmental impact.
• Lower compliance thresholds – more businesses will have to comply as EPR will lower compliance thresholds.
• Changes to reporting – current regulations expect obligated producers to report packaging data once per year, under the EPR regulations more granular reporting will be required and, depending on business size, it will need to be more frequent.