The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s pEPR model is intended to shift costs upstream so producers pay the full net cost of managing packaging waste. The theory is simple - make difficult to recycle packaging more expensive to place on the market through modulated fees; hard-to-recycle composites, laminates, problematic plastics etc. should attract higher charges.
Rewarding better design
Everyone agrees that packaging that's reusable, easily recyclable or designed for disassembly should attract lower fees and push reduction, not just recycling. In theory, once producers face real costs, they should reduce unnecessary packaging and move away from low value single use formats.
Funding better collection and sorting infrastructure
Part of the money from pEPR (£1.5 billion per annum) is meant to support local authority collection systems and recycling performance. The problem is that pEPR mainly acts after packaging exists, not as a hard brake on plastic production itself. Whilst it may improve design for recyclability, it doesn't necessarily cap virgin plastic production, ban problematic polymers outright, force reuse systems at scale or fully address over-packaging and the convenience culture.
pEPR can make bad packaging more expensive but not illegal. If pEPR works properly, it should move policy away from the old fiction that we can recycle our way out of this. It should say instead that if you place unrecyclable or hard-to-recycle packaging on the market, you will pay for the damage - a much more honest mechanism.
But pEPR only works if paired with Simpler Recycling, Digital Waste Tracking, Deposit Return Schemes, Eco-design standards and potentially material bans or production constraints. Otherwise it risks becoming a tax on bad packaging rather than a system that actually prevents bad packaging.
pEPR may make producers pay the piper — but it doesn’t necessarily stop them playing the same old tune. It's early days, but now is the time to analyse it critically; very critically. More like this (pEPR) - link - more like this (EU EPR) - link - more like this (legislation) - link
Everyone agrees that packaging that's reusable, easily recyclable or designed for disassembly should attract lower fees and push reduction, not just recycling. In theory, once producers face real costs, they should reduce unnecessary packaging and move away from low value single use formats.
Funding better collection and sorting infrastructure
Part of the money from pEPR (£1.5 billion per annum) is meant to support local authority collection systems and recycling performance. The problem is that pEPR mainly acts after packaging exists, not as a hard brake on plastic production itself. Whilst it may improve design for recyclability, it doesn't necessarily cap virgin plastic production, ban problematic polymers outright, force reuse systems at scale or fully address over-packaging and the convenience culture.
pEPR can make bad packaging more expensive but not illegal. If pEPR works properly, it should move policy away from the old fiction that we can recycle our way out of this. It should say instead that if you place unrecyclable or hard-to-recycle packaging on the market, you will pay for the damage - a much more honest mechanism.
But pEPR only works if paired with Simpler Recycling, Digital Waste Tracking, Deposit Return Schemes, Eco-design standards and potentially material bans or production constraints. Otherwise it risks becoming a tax on bad packaging rather than a system that actually prevents bad packaging.
pEPR may make producers pay the piper — but it doesn’t necessarily stop them playing the same old tune. It's early days, but now is the time to analyse it critically; very critically. More like this (pEPR) - link - more like this (EU EPR) - link - more like this (legislation) - link
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