Pow meets industry groups to thrash out EPR delivery

The meetings form part of Defra’s commitment to “work closely” with industry to roll out the legislation.

The roundtable meetings come amid widespread rumours that parts of the industry are lobbying for changes to the proposals as the cost-of-living crisis hits.

This was highlighted at the Coca-Cola ‘Real Talk 2022’ Conference last week, when Paula Chin, policy director at the WWF, criticised businesses for wanting EPR policies to give them confidence to move forward, “but on the other hand is there some lobbying behind the scenes for watering down and delays of these policies as well”.

Feedback

Defra denied that this weeks discussions represent any form of “crisis talks”.

Ahead of the roundtable meetings , Defra said it has constantly listened to feedback from industry throughout the process and highlighted that the costs of the system have already been reduced from £2.7 billion to £1.4 billion, when plans for business waste were dropped earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story).

The department reiterated that powers in the landmark Environment Act will move the cost of dealing with packaging waste away from the taxpayer and on to packaging producers, who will pay for the full cost of managing packaging waste from households, and through the fees they pay they will be incentivised to use packaging that can be recycled and meet higher recycling targets.

The revenue generated will then support better local council services and ensure that households see better packaging collections through consistent recycling reforms.

While the system is due for 2024, the government laid out a statutory instrument last month which mandated producers to collect report data from March 2023 at the latest.

Our EPR scheme will work hand-in-hand with our proposals for Consistent Recycling Collections

• Defra

“By placing more responsibility on ‘brands’ and manufacturers to use more recyclable packaging, businesses and consumers can recycle their packaging waste more easily, with less going to landfill or incineration with energy recovery and more going into new products,” the department explained to letsrecycle.com.

They added: “Our EPR scheme will work hand-in-hand with our proposals for Consistent Recycling Collections, with the producers helping to fund local authority collections from households. This ensures that not only do we produce and use more sustainable packaging, but that more of it is captured and recycled from our homes and businesses, therefore creating a much more circular economy for our waste.”