The Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 have been published. The Draft, if made into law, will replace the framework for packaging producer responsibly in the UK and will introduce the long-awaited extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy.
The Regulations will apply to all UK packaging producers which have an annual turnover of £1m or more and who imports or supplies more than 25 tonnes of packaging to the UK market per calendar year. All those in scope must:
For this purpose, the Draft Regulations define packaging producers as anyone established in the UK and who are:
The framework for EPR was introduced by the Environment Act 2021, which paved the way for Regulations to be made imposing producer responsibility obligations on specified people and products in order to prevent waste or reducing the amount of a product or material that becomes waste. As part of that, provisions could be made that require the maintenance and reporting of records.
In preparation for the reporting elements of the proposed new Regulations, each UK country introduced data reporting legislation in 2023 requiring large and small producers to gather packaging data ahead of time, although up until this point only large producers were required to report it. That legislation will be replaced by these Draft Regulations once they're approved, so all UK requirements are contained neatly in one statutory instrument.
Before this Draft is made into law, it must be approved by both Houses of Parliament. It is therefore unknown how long it will be before the Draft is made into law. The Draft was laid before both houses on 24 October 2024.
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