The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) held its first business readiness forum yesterday (10 January) as it looks to increase engagement with industry on its collection and packaging reforms, which include EPR, the deposit return scheme (DRS) and consistency in household and business recycling in England.
During the forum, attendees from across the packaging industry expressed confusion about how to work out if they were obligated under EPR, what kinds of packaging they needed to collect data on, from when and how.
Defra representatives pointed to an online obligation checker published last month and said they would provide written clarification soon.
For those affected by EPR, the collection of packaging data becomes mandatory in March, though many businesses began doing so at the start of this year.
Away from EPR, Defra reiterated that the government planned to publish its long-awaited response to its consultation on the DRS this month, while the consistency response is due “very shortly” after.
Defra plans to hold its business readiness forums every fortnight (see letsrecycle.com story). Defra also says it is establishing a local authority forum, with the first to meet this week, while it is considering how best to engage with waste management companies and MRFs.
Amendments
In late November, Defra published a draft statutory instrument in parliament setting out how businesses would submit data for EPR (see letsrecycle.com story).
We’ve identified that there need to be some minor amendments to the statutory instrument– Lynne Phillips, Defra director with responsibility for the collection and packaging reforms
However, yesterday, Lynne Phillips, the Defra director with responsibility for the collection and packaging reforms, said: “We’ve identified that there need to be some minor amendments to the statutory instrument because of a minor inconsistency around how we’ve defined household packaging as primary and shipment packaging only. It should have included scope in relation to secondary and tertiary packaging.
“The amendments we need to make to the regulations don’t mark any change to the approach. They just provide extra clarity and won’t affect the date of them coming into force, which obviously is subject to parliamentary approval, but we’re aiming for February/March this year.
“The changes have already been coordinated with our Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations and colleagues.”
‘Visioning sprints’
Elsewhere during yesterday’s forum, Caroline Wynn-Davies, Defra’s head of operations and stakeholder engagement for collection and packaging reform, said the department would launch periods of ‘visioning sprints’ for EPR from 26 January.
To last between six and eight weeks each, the sprints will explore “where we want to be with EPR in 10 years’ time”. Ms Wynn-Davies said the sprints would not change what happened in 2024.
There are currently around 90 people involved in the sprint groups, Ms Wynn-Davies said, including representatives from companies, trade associations, local authorities and material recycling facilities (MRfs).
Defra will provide updates from the sprints at future business readiness forums, Ms Wynn-Davies said.
‘This year and next’
However, Phil Conran, director of the 360 Environmental consultancy and former chair of the government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging, expressed concerns during the Q&A that Defra was focusing too much on the long-term for EPR.
“The real problem we’ve got is not what’s going to happen in two or three years’ time, but actually what’s going to happen this year and next,” he said.
“There is so much misunderstanding, confusion and difficulty for people determining where they sit in the process that what we really need is a way in which people can find out much more detail on what they need to do.”
Mr Conran added: “Your vision sprinting is slightly mistimed. The real issue over the next few months is trying to get people to understand how they should be operating under the new system.”
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