Ms Crichton, the department’s team leader for producer responsibility, spoke on Thursday, 24 November, and outlined Defra’s progress on extended producer responsibility responsibility (EPR) for packaging and how it intends to roll the scheme out in the coming months.
She spoke the day after the department published a statutory instrument setting out how businesses will be required to start gathering data next year (see letsrecycle.com story). Defra also met with business leaders about their data requirements on 23 November (see letsrecycle.com story).
At the talk, Ms Crichton said all EPR requirements will be incorporated into law under new UK-wide Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations, which the department expects to be published in ‘late 2023’.
And, in light of growing fears about the impact on consumers in a cost of living crisis, Ms Crichton said Defra’s impact assessment had indicated that EPR could add around £40 a year to household bills, but any increase in prices for consumers are a “choice” for businesses. She said it was up to businesses to decide “if and how they pass costs up and down the supply chain”.
Journey
Ms Crichton said progress was finally being made though it seems “we have been on this journey for quite some time now”.
She began her talk at the conference by outlining the government’s response to the EPR consultation from March, which was “a joint government response published by the four UK governments”.
The response included mandating the kerbside collection of film by 31 March 2027, mandatory recyclability labelling from 2026 and mandatory takeback schemes for coffee cups, among other things.
The response also included plans to continue the packaging recovery note (PRN) system for now and a consultation on how it could be improved. The government published its response to the PRN consultation in October, with plans for monthly reporting of data and competency checks for reprocessors, exporters and schemes as the main highlight.
Outlook
Ms Crichton highlighted three key pieces of legislation the government will roll out in the coming months to put EPR in place.
The first was the statutory instrument published on 23 November. The second is the UK-wide packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations and the third is amendments to the materials facilities regulations, which will bring additional sampling requirements in relation to packaging into effect.
She also reiterated that PRN evidence will not be issued on material collected though a DRS and that the consultation responses on DRS and collection consistency will be published “shortly”.
Under EPR, businesses will be required to collect data from March 2023, ready to begin payments next year. Obligated producers include those with a turnover of more than £2 million and place more than 50 tonnes of material on the market.
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