This legislation places increased accountability on product and packaging manufacturers, importers, and brand owners to reduce the environmental impacts of their products and packaging. These businesses must now financially contribute towards the costs associated with the collection, recovery, and disposal of the packaging.
Businesses have been obligated to collect data in line with EPR rules since January 2023. For large producers, the first EPR data report was due by 1 October 2023, with the second due by 1 April 2024. Small producers should have collected data for 2023, but are not due to report any data until 2025.
Obligated producers will only incur enhanced fee obligations under EPR from October 2025 (fees in addition to PRN procurement costs) for packaging placed on the market in 2024. As of June 2024, Defra are still finalising the materials and categories that will incur charges and how much the corresponding charges will be. Different materials will incur different levels of charges; to correspond to how environmentally and financially costly the materials are to dispose of, or recycle.
To keep up to date with EPR obligations visit the Government website; updated regularly..https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/extended-producer-responsibility-for-packaging-report-packaging-data