Extended Producer Responsibility: The Complete Guide

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is now in place and Producers have recently completed their first year of EPR submissions and should now be preparing for their H1 2024 submissions.

The EPR system is designed to incentivise certain members of the supply chain to use easy to recycle materials for their packaging by making obligated companies responsible for the full net cost of the collection and recycling of the packaging waste they place onto UK markets.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a system that mandates packaging producers to fund the full net cost of collecting, sorting, treating, and recycling packaging waste. Obligated organisations have been required to report EPR packaging data since 2023, with financial obligations for large organisations starting in 2025.

Under this principle, the direct cost of recycling specific packaging is borne by those placing the packaging onto the UK market, shifting the responsibility from taxpayers to brand owners and producers. EPR will cover the collection, treatment, and sorting costs of packaging waste through direct payments from producers. Additionally, producers and importers will continue to fund the actual recycling of their packaging waste through the purchase of Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs).

Packaging producers obligated under EPR will have been collecting detailed packaging data in the 7+ Other categories since January 2023 and have now submitted the first full year of EPR submissions.

The next submission is due in October 2024.

The reporting categories for phase of EPR are the following:

• Plastic
• Paper/Board
• Aluminium
• Glass
• Steel
• Wood
• Fibre-based composites
• Other

By Q3 of 2025 obligated Producer’s will be required to gather more granular packaging data in the modulated categories, such as polymer type and packaging format.

1st October 2025 will be the first EPR Local Authority Payment from obligated Packaging Producers to the Scheme Administrator.

Modulated fees, or eco-modulation, is the mechanism by which EPR aims to reduce packaging placed onto the UK market. Under this approach, each material grade is assigned an EPR fee based on a recyclability assessment, with lower fees for more easily recyclable materials.

Although the initial focus of eco-modulation is on recyclability, Defra will consider broader environmental implications of packaging materials in later EPR revisions. These modulations encompass Local Authority collection and sorting costs, featuring bonuses for some materials and malus for others.

EPR will fund the full net cost of the collection, sorting, and treatment of packaging waste through local councils by obligated packaging producers. The actual recycling of packaging waste will be funded by producers through the PRN system.

For now, the collection and recycling of business packaging waste will be funded by the businesses that dispose of the packaging waste.

Organisations placing 25t of packaging onto the UK market who also have a minimum turnover of £1m, are required to report under Extended Producer Responsibility and are defined as ‘Packaging Producers’ in the new regulations. This is a lowered threshold from the previous regulations.

Small Organisation

• You are classed as a ‘small organisation’ if either of the following apply:
• Your annual turnover is over £1 million and you’re responsible for supplying or importing between 25 tonnes and 50 tonnes of empty packaging or packaged goods in the UK

Large Organisation

• You will be classed as a ‘large organisation’ if both of the following apply:
• You have an annual turnover of £2 million or more (based on your most recent set of audited accounts)
• You are responsible for supplying or importing more than 50 tonnes of packaging or packaged goods in the UK

What are my obligations as a Small Producer under EPR?

‘Small Organisation’ EPR obligations:

• You will report data once a year
• You will not be obligated to pay a Local Authority Waste Management fee

What are my obligations as a Large Producer under EPR?

‘Large Organisation’ EPR obligations:

• You will report data at least twice a year
• Pay for disposal costs for the packaging waste that goes into household collection and street bins.
• Meet recycling obligations (met by acquiring PRNs/PERNs).
• Nation of Sale – report where packaging is disposed, by nation within the UK.

Producers of DRS packaging will not be required to pay the disposal cost fees under Extended Producer Responsibility for their packaging ending up in household waste or in street bins. The government does not consider it desirable to obligate producers of DRS packaging to pay disposal costs under Extended Producer Responsibility for the intervening period between DRS and EPR implementation.

In the intervening period before the DRS commences, glass bottles sold into Wales will be covered by the Local Authority collection cost obligations under Extended Producer Responsibility, making this consistent with the requirements for glass bottles in England and Northern Ireland. Producers will be required to pay an EPR fee on this material during the intervening period between Welsh DRS and EPR implementation. Once the DRS in Wales goes live, glass drinks bottles in Wales will be exempt from EPR Local Authority Waste Management fees.

Based on feedback from the recent consultation on the EPR regulations, if a Deposit Return Scheme is not in operation by 1st January 2028, producers of in-scope DRS drinks containers will be subject to the EPR Local Authority Waste Management fee until a DRS is operational for this material.

PRNs subsidise the cost of actual recycling in the UK whereas EPR will cover the full net cost of the collection, treatment and sorting costs of packaging waste.
In the new system, businesses obligated under EPR will be required to:

• Submit granular packaging data twice a year
• Purchase the equivalent number of P(E)RNs to the amount of packaging they have placed onto UK markets
• Pay a Local Authority Waste Management Fee and scheme administrator costs to the scheme administrator (scheme administrator for Extended Producer Responsibility is yet to be announced)

Under Extended Producer Responsibility, the purchasing of P(E)RNs remains the mechanism through which obligated businesses comply with their recycling obligations. Under the new system, obligated businesses will continue to purchase P(E)RNs as they do now however, there will be an additional Local Authority waste management fee to cover the full net cost of collection, treatment and sorting of packaging waste.

As part of the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging legislation, obligated producers are required to label all consumer packaging with the ‘Recycle’ or ‘Do not Recycle’ visual. I
Initially the deadline for businesses to include these labels on their packaging was 31st March 2026 for all packaging materials except films and flexible plastic where the deadline was 31st March 2027.

Defra have now announced that the labelling provision under EPR will now be pushed back to 31st March 2027 for all packaging materials.

The new regulations align with the format and principles of the OPRL label. Brands are required to conduct a recyclability assessment according to the methodology and guidance provided by the Scheme Administrator. Based on the assessment, brands must clearly label their products with ‘Recycle’ or ‘Do not recycle’ instructions and include the appropriate Recycle Now logo variants.

All packaging, regardless of business size, are required to adhere to labelling rules under EPR. In the case of small businesses, the responsibility may shift to the ‘Large Producer’ supplying unfilled packaging to ensure accurate labelling.

Regulations are likely to require packaging manufacturers to provide recyclability information to distributors who sell unfilled packaging to small and micro businesses, or directly to such businesses.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) will be the organisation responsible for the monitoring and enforcement body of the labelling requirements.

There are 6 producer types under EPR with the single point of compliance often falling on the ‘brand owners’ or ‘importers’. Your producer type relates to your packaging activity, which is how you place packaging onto the UK market.

A brand owner: an organisation who supplies packaged goods to the UK market under your own brand

An importer: an organisation who imports products in packaging from overseas, who then go on to supply these products to the UK market.

A packer/filler: an organisation who places goods into packaging that’s unbranded when supplied onto the UK market.

An online marketplace operator: an organisation who operates a website or app that enables businesses or persons to place their packaged items or goods onto the UK market.

A service provider: an organisation who hires or loans out reusable packaging

A distributor: an organisation who supplies unfilled packaging to a company who is not a large producer, subject to obligations, who then go on to supply that packaging to the UK market.

‘Small Organisation’ EPR obligations:

• You will report data once a year
• You will not be obligated to pay a Local Authority Waste Management fee

‘Large Organisation’ EPR obligations:

• You will report data at least twice a year
• Pay for disposal costs for the packaging waste that goes into household collection and street bins.
• Meet recycling obligations (met by acquiring PRNs/PERNs).
• Nation of Sale – report where packaging is disposed, by nation within the UK.

EPR will change the way that costs of compliance are spread throughout the supply chain.

Under the current producer responsibility system, costs are shared throughout the supply chain, with percentage responsibility allocated to different points:

• 6% to manufacturers of packaging materials
• 9% to businesses that convert those raw materials into packaging
• 37% to businesses that pack fill that packaging (primary, secondary, and transit)
• 48% to businesses that sell that filled packaging to end users (primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging)

EPR will replace all of the above with a single point of compliance that levies 100% responsibility for a piece of packaging onto one business – that business will be the brand owner or importer – most often this will be the pack filler, or the business that specifies the pack filling. For secondary and transit packaging, the brand owner will also be the reporting party, and where packaging is unbranded, reporting will be by the pack-filler.

100% responsibility will now sit with one company, this means that often a pack filler brand owner of primary packaging may see their share of cost move from 37% to 100%, almost 3 times increase in the volume of packaging they now need to fund the management and disposal of. For those companies that formally picked up the packaging manufacturer, converter, or seller of primary packaging, their responsibility for primary packaging will now be zero.

So, for the part of EPR that funds the recycling process through PRNs the biggest change is in the percentage responsibility for PRNs – previously pack fillers funded roughly 1/3 of primary packaging, and under EPR, those that are brand owners will fund it all. So, an increase for those companies in their recycling obligations.

Obligated packaging producers will be required to report data on the packaging they place onto UK markets.

Those classed as ‘Small Organisations’ will be required to submit data once a year (1st April 2024), reflecting the Jan-Dec reporting period.

Those classed as ‘Large Organisations’ will be required to submit two packaging data sets, one reflecting the Jan-June reporting period (1st October 2023) and the second reflecting the Jul-Dec reporting period (1st April 2024).

1. Type and weight of material

You should categorise your data by the following materials:

• Aluminium
• Fibre-based composite
• Glass
• Paper or cardboard
• Plastic
• Steel
• Wood
• ‘Other’

‘Other’ includes any materials you use that are not listed here. For example, other materials could include:

• Bamboo
• Ink
• Ceramic
• Copper
• Cork
• Hemp
• Rubber
• Silicon

2. Packaging Activity

This refers to how you place packaging onto the UK market.

• supply packaged goods to the UK market under your own brand
• place goods into packaging that’s unbranded when it’s supplied
• import products in packaging
• own an online marketplace
• hire or loan out reusable packaging
• supply empty packaging

3. Packaging type

This refers to whether your packaging is:

• Primary
• Secondary
• Shipment
• Tertiary

4. Waste type

• Large organisations will need to report whether the packaging:
• is household
• is non-household
• commonly ends up in public bins
• is a drinks container
• is reusable
• becomes self-managed waste

Do you or your business require further information about EPR? Reach out to our team of experts to book a free EPR consultation to review your business needs.

Alternatively, if you are a Comply with Clarity member and require further information on the revised timetable and your responsibilities, please get in touch utilising the form below, your compliance manager will respond to any of your questions.