Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging: Latest information for agri-supply businesses
Draft regulations have been laid before Parliament that will repeal the existing Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 and replace the interim packaging data reporting regulations that have been in place over the last year.
The new regulations are due to come into force from 1 January 2025 and will apply in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
These regulations will enable the full functionality of the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) scheme, including introducing a mechanism in 2025 for collecting an EPR fee from Large Organisations for supplying goods that are considered to be contained by household packaging.
Additionally, the existing data reporting requirements from the previous two years have been transposed into these regulations.
There remains no EPR fee or recycling obligation for Small Organisations. However, they will need to report their packaging data.
No need (at the moment) to label packaging to indicate recyclability
It is worth noting that there is no longer a mandatory requirement to label packaging to indicate recyclability, when the regulations come into force, as had been included in previous drafts.
However, this will be reviewed in line with forthcoming EU packaging legislation so that there is consistency in any labelling requirements.
Next round of data reporting
If you are a Large Organisation obligated to report 2024 data under packaging EPR data reporting regulations, it should be reported in two batches:
- You should have already reported your January to June 2024 data by 1 October 2024
- Your July to December 2024 data needs to be reported by 1 April 2025 (the window opening for submission from January 2025 onwards)
If you are obligated as a Small Organisation, you will be required to report your 2024 data under one annual submission. This being: January to December 2024 data by Tuesday 1 April 2025 (the window opening for submission from January 2025 onwards).
Packaging Waste Recycling Notes (PRNs) and Packaging Waste Export Recycling Notes (PERNs)
AIC understands that the current PRN and PERN system will remain until at least 2026/27 for all materials, except household packaging.
To aid a smooth transition between statutory instruments and their associated systems, all packaging producers and compliance scheme users should have been notified of changes to the management of PRNs and EPRNs by the Regulator for that location in the UK.
It is understood that all management of PRN/PERNs for 2024 recycling obligations, up to and including 31 January 2025, will continue to be done on NPWD.
Whereas management of PRNs and PERNs under the 2025 year will be carried out on the new EPR for packaging digital service from February 2025.
Illustrative Base Fees
An additional EPR fee will be payable by Large Organisations to cover the full net cost of managing household packaging waste from 2025. In the first year of the scheme obligated producer’s fees will be calculated by the Scheme Administrator.
The most recent set of illustrative base fees was published in September 2024 and adopted in their calculation the same underlying approach and datasets that the pEPR Scheme Administrator will have access to from 2025.
Defra has indicated that they will release a further set of illustrative base fees in the new year with a smaller range to further support business planning.
It will not be possible to calculate final fees for use in calculating a business’s financial obligation for 2025 until after the closure of the 2024 reporting window on 1 April 2025.
Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM) being developed to determine household packaging fees from 2026
Modulation will apply from year 2 (2026) of the pEPR scheme and will mean that fees are adjusted so more recyclable packaging pays a lower fee than less recyclable packaging.
However, to inform the modulated fees for the following year, Producers will be required to assess in-scope packaging in line with the RAM and report the results as part of their Report Packaging Data (RPD) submission for the first six months of 2025, by 1 October 2025.
The RAM is yet to be finalised, and we are working with the regulators to establish the associated processes required to make this data submission.
AIC will bring Members further details once they are available.
Be aware of Regulator compliance monitoring
All the UK regulators of the scheme are continuing to increase their compliance monitoring particularly around businesses they expect to see having registered for the scheme.
To this extent, Budweiser Budvar Ltd was recently brought into compliance whilst also making a charitable contribution in excess of £400,000 by way of an Enforcement Undertaking.
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