EPR Isn’t Optional: What Every UK Brand Needs to Know
I will start off by stating that I am looking specifically at the Fashion industry here, and am not covering any type of electrical or battery operated products, white goods etc etc, purely clothes, shoes and accessories.
I had actually planned on covering both UK and EU in this blog, but it has turned out a little longer than expected, so this time I will focus just on the current UK legislation, and follow up next time on the EU. Who knows, there may even be changes or updates by then as the landscape is constantly moving.
EPR is a term that has been bandied about for a number of years, and has been formal policy in the UK for a couple of years, but there is still an amount of uncertainty about what it actually is and what brands should be doing about it.
The upshot – Extended Producer Responsibility is a long overdue suite of policies that shifts some of the financial cost of recycling (or other disposal) of product packaging back to the brands who put this waste onto the market and into people’s homes. Some countries have a policy covering the actual products, which is on its way for the UK too, but I am concentrating on the packaging side only today.
The goal? To incentivize better packaging design and ultimately reduce waste.
Plastic bags - why do we need them when there are alternative options?
Which one of us hasn’t bought something and wondered WHY all the packaging, and WHY what is being used isn’t made from something easily recyclable? The food industry is terrible for it (coloured plastic trays that aren’t recycled in many UK counties, and they are often brown so not even a ‘pretty’ colour!) but the fashion industry isn’t great either.
In the UK, producers (and by this we are talking about the company/ brand that puts the packaged product onto the market, whether this is selling direct to the customer or wholesale to other retailers) should already have been declaring plastic packaging since 2007 under the Waste Framework Directive, which in 2022 became the PPT (Plastic Packaging Tax) and then became the current iteration, covering all packaging types from 2023.
The UK has split the framework onto 3 distinct sections:
A Large Producer – a company with an annual turnover of over £2m and over 50 tonnes of packaging waste
A Small Producer – a company with an annual turnover of over £1m and between 25 and 50 tonnes of packaging waste
A Non-Obligated/ Voluntary Producer – a company who falls below the Small Producer threshold
NB: Packaging waste does not just mean the packaging that ends up in a consumers home (like the swing tags and garment bags) but also covers the packaging of the products when shipped from the factory/ manufacturer into the brand’s or retailer’s warehouse.
Large Producers were required to have registered (either directly with the Government or with a 3rd party PCS (Producer Compliance Scheme) by April 2023, and then their 6 monthly declarations were due in October ’23 (for the period January – June ‘23), April ’24 (for the period July – December ‘23), etc
Small Producers were required to have registered (either directly with the Government or with a 3rd party PCS (Producer Compliance Scheme) by April 2025 with the annual declaration due at the same time for the period January to December ’24.
Non-Obligated Producers are, as yet, not required by law to register and make declarations, but may voluntarily participate for transparency (and also to track when they meet the Small Producer threshold)
So what data do you need to collect, collate and track?
Basically, everything! All packaging is broken down into 4 ‘types’ of packaging, so anything and everything that is not the actual product needs to be weighed and logged.
Primary – this is what is directly ‘attached’ to the product and is received by the customer. This is Household Packaging waste, where it is disposed of either in the recycling (hopefully) or the bin (as unfortunately there is still packaging being used that is not easily or widely recycled) by the consumer.
Swing tags and string (or ribbon or those nasty plastic kimbles if you still use them)? Yep.
Garment bags or boxes? Yep.
Tissue paper? Yep. (This could be a single sheet folded inside the garment or wrapped around a delicate button or trim or it could be used to stuff a handbag or shoe to ensure it retains its shape)
Reducing the use of unnecessary product packaging is the goal.
Secondary – this is packaging that groups multiple primary packages together for retail or display and is generally not received by the customer. This is generally Non-Household Packaging.
Branded retail boxes for shelf display are a good example of this.
Tertiary – this is the packaging used for bulk transport and is not seen by the consumer. This is also Non-Household Packaging.
Cartons? Yep
Pallets and pallet wrap? Yep.
Carton void fillers? This can be anything from paper to air pockets. Yep
Shipping – this is the packaging used to deliver ecom orders to the customer, and is also Household Packaging.
Ecom bags or boxes? Yep.
Void fillers? Again, this can be paper, air cushions or the squishy (no longer) polystyrene shapes. Yep.
Additional flyers, paperwork etc sent to the customer with an order? Yep.
Consideration of how you ship your products to your customers is important - both for practical and aesthetic reasons.
Sounds like a lot right? A lot of packaging, a lot of data to collate that all needs to be grouped by what its made from (paper, plastic, metal, wood, composites and ‘other’).
It is, and it isn’t at the same time – I have worked with 3 of my clients to collate their data over the last couple of years, and I created a really simple system that pulls all the data together to allow for easier declaration. 1 client used a 3rd party for the final declaration, so the data was then transferred to their portal/ system, and for the other 2 I then created and made the final declaration directly through the government portal. Yes, there is work involved in knowing every piece of packaging; what it’s made from and what it weighs, but in truth it really isn’t rocket science and once the tool is built, updating it each year for the declarations is relatively straight forward. And in all honesty, this is something that you should be doing anyway – if you are creating waste, you really should know what it is – taking ownership.
There are a number of Producer Compliance Schemes out there that offer a variety of options to declare the data for you, which depending on your business size can charge up to 10s of 1000s of pounds. It makes sense if you fall into the large producer category as there are PRNs (Packaging Recovery Notes) to consider which are, in all honesty, best handled by the larger schemes, but if you are a Small Producer, where is the value in not self declaring?
Of the 527 Small producers registered and with declarations made this year, a huge 416 of them (78%) used a PCS according to the public register published by the government itself. Interestingly, about 3% of Large Producers self declared too.
All of those 416 companies will have had to gather, collate and present the data to the 3rd party for the declaration to be made. Having declared both ways with different clients, I can tell you that creating the documents required for self declaration was way quicker than using another portal to input all the data with one of the very big and well known PCSs. And because of the system I use to collect and collate the initial data, the cost to the business for me supporting (or doing) the self declaration was considerably less than what a PCS would have charged for the same service, just with a fancy portal!
What does it cost?
Unless you are a Large Producer, aside from your registration fee (about £1200, although if you haven’t already registered there will be a late fee of approx £350 – NB this may have been updated since April as you are now very late if you haven’t already registered!), currently there is no additional charge for the tonnage of waste. Large Producers will be charged by the tonne for the different types of packaging type (and plastic is more than double the per tonne charge of paper/ card).
From 2026 there are further changes planned – including a traffic light system (much like the one that is mandatory on food now) that will show if a piece of packaging is fully recyclable (Green), partially recyclable or recyclable with certain conditions (Amber) and non recyclable (Red) and each will have modulated charges based on this. The recyclability is based on the material composition, the availability of recycling infrastructure, any contamination risks and ease/ cost or separation and sorting. There are no details yet as to when (it is a when not an if) Small Producers will start to be charged, and when the currently non obligated producers will become obligated.
The 78% of Small Producers who used a PCS for their declarations? Using The Knowledge Nexus could have saved them a fair amount. From what I know some brands were charged in addition to the registration fee vs what I charged for the same service, there could have been a 50% saving in the first year, and up to 75% in the following years.
It's another ‘hidden’ cost of the industry – but in my opinion, which can be very black and white at times - it is fair that some of the cost of disposing of waste is pushed back to those who ‘make’ the waste – if nothing else, it will make the industry as a whole look at what packaging is actually needed, and move to more sustainable and recyclable solutions!
So last question – are you not registered when you should be? Are you struggling to make sense of what you need to do? Well, get in touch and let us help you.
