The EPR makes firms that supply household packaging responsible for the costs of dealing with packaging waste, moving costs away from councils and council taxpayers.
Producers will be required to pay for the collection and disposal costs of household packaging they supply when it becomes waste. This will encourage producers to reduce the amount of packaging they place on the market and to improve the recyclability of their packaging, in turn ensuring less waste ends up in the natural environment.
All obligated packaging producers in England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland must collect information on the amount and type of packaging they have supplied during 2023. Wales will follow shortly.
Producers with a turnover of greater than £2 million and that handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging each year must also report this information to the Environment Agency twice a year.
The first reports must be submitted from 1 October 2023.
Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow, said these reforms will encourage businesses to increase their use of recyclable materials, shifting costs away from the taxpayer and supporting our work to protect the environment from the scourge of waste.
In 2020, 12 million tonnes of packaging was placed on the UK market, some of which contain plastics that are hard to recycle. Incentivising producers to use better, more recyclable materials will help stem this tide of waste.
Producers will be required to pay an EPR fee towards the costs of collecting and managing household packaging waste, currently borne by local authorities. This shift of cost is estimated to be around £1.2 billion per year across all local authorities, once EPR is fully operational.
Before decisions are made about the final shape of the scheme, the government said it needs to gather information from businesses that will be affected. This data will provide the basis for establishing the packaging waste management fees individual producers will pay in 2024, when EPR comes into force.
For further information, see specific guidance on collecting data for packaging EPR, along with wider guidance for industry on GOV.UK.
