What is the packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)?

There is an essential distinction between what the Extended Producer Responsibility legislation classifies as household packaging and what is deemed as industrial or transit packaging.

Household packaging is defined as packaging collected from homes through local recycling systems. It encompasses primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging that ultimately becomes household waste.

• Primary packaging: The packaging that directly contains the product, e.g., a bottle or box.
• Secondary packaging: The packaging that is used to group individual products, e.g., cartons or shrink wrap.
• Tertiary packaging: The packaging that is used for transport, e.g., pallets or stretch film.

The key packaging material categories that are included under these regulations are as follows:

• Paper and cardboard – Shipping boxes, labels, paper bags, and cardboard wraps.
• Plastic – Bottles, pots, tubs, trays, films, crisp packets, and pouch packaging.
• Glass – Jars and bottles.
• Metal – Aluminium cans, foil, steel aerosols, and paint tins.
• Wood – Wooden pallets and crates.
• Fibre-based composites – Drink cartons and drink pouches.
• Other – Cork, jute, hessian, and ceramics.

If your business sells products or goods in packaging that is labelled with your brand, you are likely to fall within the scope of EPR.

Branding includes any logo, trademark, or distinctive mark.

You may also need to act if you pay another business to produce goods you sell under your brand name. Similarly, if a third party packs goods sold under your brand name, places branded goods on the market for you, or imports goods for you, you might need to take action.

A useful example is a food product manufacturer.

If you produce food products under your own name and the packaging includes your branding, you are responsible for that packaging under EPR. You remain liable even if a third party, such as a supermarket, sells your products.

However, if you produce goods that a supermarket sells under its own brand name, it would be responsible for any packaging.

If your business or organisation imports products from outside the UK that use primary, secondary, or any packaging used for their transportation, you are likely within the scope of the legislation.

Packaging EPR applies even if you discard the packaging before selling the goods.

However, if you are importing goods on behalf of a third party, they are responsible for reporting any costs incurred through EPR. In this case, you do not need to take any action.

The government defines online marketplaces as websites that allow non-UK businesses to sell goods to UK consumers. You will be responsible for the packaging generated by these activities if you own such a marketplace.

However, if you run a website that only sells goods from UK businesses or organisations, this is not a marketplace and is therefore outside the scope of EPR.

If you are a packaging manufacturer that effectively supplies empty packaging, you will likely be required to take action under the EPR legislation.

In this case, EPR primarily affects the packaging you supply to businesses that the legislation defines as small.

Conversely, your business may use packaging but have a turnover of less than £2 million or handle less than 50 tonnes of packaging each year. In this case, the new regulations make your packaging supplier liable.

If your business has an annual turnover of more than £2 million, and you handle or supply more than 50 tonnes of empty packaging or packaged goods within the UK, then you are deemed a large business.

If you qualify as a large business, you will be liable for purchasing PRNs and other fees and costs that are associated with packaging recovery and recycling as part of EPR.

Please note that the weight of packaging supplied or handled applies to the calendar year (January to December) rather than the financial or tax years.

Find the full breakdown of who is responsible under the EPR legislation here.

There are various options for registering and complying with EPR if you are part of a parent company, a group of businesses, or a subsidiary.

Firstly, you could register as a whole group, and in this scenario, the parent company would be responsible for compliance with packaging requirements for all subsidiaries within the group.

Secondly, subsidiaries can register as individual entities. Any subsidiaries that exceed the turnover and packaging use (tonnage) thresholds are responsible for their own compliance and reporting.

Finally, a parent company can register for some of the subsidiary companies. This option may be helpful when some, but not all, subsidiaries meet the compliance requirements.

Some of your subsidiaries may not meet the turnover tonnage thresholds individually, but do collectively. If so, you must register as a parent company for these and be responsible for their compliance with EPR.

Packaging users deemed as small producers must record their data and report empty packaging and packaged goods.

You must supply your packaging data for the previous year 1 April of the following year, and you may also need to report nation data.

You must also pay an annual fee to the environmental regulator.

If you fail to do any of this or miss the specified deadlines, you may be subject to fines or penalty charges.

The steps you should take as a large producer are similar to those for small producers, with some differences.

You must also record data regarding your packaging use for the previous year, including nation data. However, large producers must report their data every six months (e.g., data for January to June is due by 1 October, and data from July to December due by 1 April the following year). Missing these deadlines can result in penalty charges.

The increased reporting also means you must create an account and register your business.

Besides these requirements, you must also pay a fee to the environmental regulator alongside buying PRNs or PERNs to meet your recycling obligations.

Crucially, you must also pay administrative and waste management fees (often referred to as EPR fees) for any packaging you handle or supply that is eventually collected from households or street bins by local authorities.

Whether you are a large or small producer, Extended Producer Responsibility will require more detailed reporting of your packaging use. For larger producers, this reporting also shifts from annual to biannual.

The increased detail in the figures you must report aims to enable the introduction of modulated fees. Modulated fees target packaging that is more difficult to recycle, resulting in higher waste management fees.