The way UK organisations responsible for packaging must carry out their recycling responsibilities has changed. If you’re affected by extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging, you may need to report your packaging data from 2023 onward, and in the future pay fees based on your data .
EPR for packaging fees have been deferred for a year. You will not have to pay any EPR packaging fees in 2024. However, you must still follow this guidance and report your packaging data for 2023, and will be required to pay any related fees in 2025 based on 2024 data. You must also continue to pay any fees due under previous regulations.
The regulations will apply to all obligated UK organisations that import or supply packaging.
You need to collect and report packaging data for a given year if all the following apply:
- you’re an individual business, subsidiary or group (but not a charity)
- you have an annual turnover of £1 million or more, based on your most recent annual accounts up to 7 April
- you were responsible for importing or supplying more than 25 tonnes of packaging to the UK market in the previous calendar year
- you carry out any of the packaging activities
You may need to act if you do any of the following:
- supply packaged goods to the UK market under your own brand
- place goods into packaging
- import products in packaging
- own an online marketplace
- hire or loan out reusable packaging
- supply empty packaging
Organisations that supply packaged goods to end users in the UK may need to collect ‘nation data’. You can find out more about this in the ‘check if you need to report nation data’ section.
You may need to take action if packaged goods labelled with your own brand are supplied to the UK market. A brand includes any of the following:
- a name
- a trademark
- any distinguishing mark
For example, a UK confectionery company manufactures and packages sweets under their own brand. It sells these sweets to a UK supermarket. The supermarket goes on to sell the sweets to UK end users. In this instance, the confectionery company must take action. However, the UK confectionery company would not need to take action if it produced and packaged sweets under the UK supermarket’s brand, which the supermarket then sold to UK end users. In this instance, the UK supermarket must take action.
You may also need to take action if you pay or license another company to do any of the following for you:
- produce branded packaged goods that will be sold under your brand name
- pack branded packaged goods that will be sold under your brand name
- place your branded packaged goods on the UK market
- import branded packaged goods for you
If you place goods into packaging you may need to take action. This could be goods you packaged for your own organisation or for another organisation.
You may need to take action if your organisation imports products from outside the UK that are in packaging and goes on to supply these products to the UK market.
You may need to take action if you sell imported goods that are packed or filled by a UK third party on behalf of a company that is not established in the UK.
You may need to take action even if you discard packaging before selling the goods.
You do not need to take action if you import filled packaging that is:
- branded, and you’ve imported it on behalf of a brand owner that is established in the UK
- unbranded, and you go on to supply it to a ‘large’ organisation that applies its brand before supplying it on
Under EPR for packaging, you’re classed as carrying out the ‘owning an online marketplace’ activity if you operate a website or app that allows non-UK businesses to sell their goods into the UK. If you own an online marketplace, you may need to take action.
If your organisation owns a website or app that sells goods from UK organisations only, this is not classed as carrying out the ‘owning an online marketplace’ activity. However, you should check if you carry out any of the other packaging activities.
If you hire or loan out reusable packaging, you may need to take action.
For example, some organisations hire or loan out wooden pallets to other organisations for transporting goods. The wooden pallets are returned after use and loaned out again.
You may need to take action if you manufacture or import empty packaging and then supply it to a business that is not classed as a large organisation, or supply this packaging to a large producer that does not fill the packaging.
You may need to:
- collect and report data on the packaging you supply or import
- pay a waste management fee
- pay scheme administrator costs
- pay a charge to the environmental regulator
- get packaging waste recycling notes (PRNs) or packaging waste export recycling notes (PERNs) to meet your recycling obligations
- report information about which nation in the UK packaging is supplied in and which nation in the UK packaging is discarded in – this is called ‘nation data’
Check if you’re a large or small organisation
You’re classed as a small organisation if either of the following apply:
- your annual turnover is between £1 million and £2 million and you’re responsible for supplying or importing more than 25 tonnes of packaging in the UK
- your annual turnover is over £1 million and you’re responsible for supplying or importing between 25 tonnes and 50 tonnes of packaging in the UK
You will be classed as a large organisation if both of the following apply:
- you have an annual turnover of £2 million or more
- you’re responsible for supplying or importing more than 50 tonnes of packaging in the UK
If you’re a small organisation
To comply with the regulations, you should have recorded data about the packaging you supply or import in the UK from either 1 January 2023 or 1 March 2023 – find out what period you must collect data on and the deadlines for reporting. You will need to report your 2024 data by 1 April 2025.
If you’re a large organisation
To comply with the regulations, you may need to:
- record data about the empty packaging and packaged goods you supply or import in the UK from either 1 January 2023 or 1 March 2023
- create an account for your organisation
From 2025, you may need to do the following, based on your 2024 data:
- pay a waste management fee
- pay scheme administrator costs
- pay a registration charge to the environmental regulator
- get PRNs or PERNs to meet your recycling obligations
- report data about packaging you supplied or imported – this includes packaging around raw materials
Your waste management fee will initially be calculated based on packaging you’ve reported as ‘household packaging’. If your organisation is based in Wales
Large and small organisations in Wales should comply with this reporting schedule if they have the required data.
If you do not have all the required data recorded from 1 January, you must report all of your data from 17 July 2023. If you report data that covers a period starting from 17 July, this will be used to calculate a full year’s worth of data.
If you’re a parent company, group or subsidiary
Parent companies and their subsidiaries can comply with EPR for packaging in different ways. They can comply as:
- a whole group – the parent group creates an account and reports packaging data on behalf of each subsidiary that supplies packaging
- individual subsidiaries – each subsidiary that supplies packaging creates an account and reports independently
- a mix of the other ways – the parent company reports on behalf of some parts of the group, while other subsidiaries report for themselves
If the parent group is reporting on behalf of some or all of its subsidiaries, you’ll need separate packaging data for each subsidiary. Check the guidance on creating your packaging data file for more information.
How extended producer responsibility for packaging works
From 2025, some organisations and businesses will have to pay a fee for the packaging they supply to or import into the UK market. This is called extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging.
The money will go to local authorities (LAs), as:
- waste disposal, waste collection or unitary authorities
- statutory waste disposal authorities
It will cover net costs of collecting, managing, recycling and disposing of household packaging waste.
In the future, LAs will need to sign up to the new local authority payments (LAPs) function of the EPR digital service to receive payments. Defra and the Scheme Administrator, once formally established, will contact LA chief executives from November 2024 to let them know what actions they need to take.
In the first year (April 2025 to March 2026) LAs will receive a basic payment based on:
- publicly available and existing data, including WasteDataFlow information and Office of National Statistics (ONS) data
- data about tonnages, operations and unit costs gathered from a representative sample of LAs across the UK
From the second year (April 2026 to March 2027) the basic payment and any adjustments will be based on data LAs submit to the Scheme Administrator. After LAPs opens, Defra will send chief executives an email request to sign up for the service. They’ll need to give contact details of who will sign up for the service on behalf of the LA – this will usually be the heads of finance and waste management.
LAs will be able to use the service to:
- view the detailed breakdown of their payment estimate
- confirm their payment details
- receive updates and notifications
- view assessment notices
- submit data
Recycling obligations and waste disposal fees
UK organisations that are affected by extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging may need to get evidence of packaging waste recycling and pay disposal fees. The way UK organisations responsible for packaging must carry out their recycling responsibilities is changing.
If you’re affected by EPR, you should collect the correct packaging data for 1 January to 31 December 2023. A separate guide covers previous producer responsibility regulations – you may need to meet both sets of regulations depending on your situation.
Details of the data LAs will be able to submit in future years have not been finalised. Defra is analysing data submitted from representative LAs to confirm what data will be needed for all LAs to collect and report in future years.
LAs will be updated as soon as this is finalised. There’ll be a window for LAs to collect the data before the submission deadline. The collection windows and submission deadline will be communicated in advance. Although LAs are not required to submit data, doing so will help improve the overall accuracy of the modelled payment calculations. This will help ensure LAs receive more accurate payments.
The costs of collecting additional data requested by the Scheme Administrator will be covered by EPR.