Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the extended producer responsibility scheme on (a) creating a circular economy for recycled materials and (b) ensuring businesses can acquire the recycled content placed on the market.

The Department’s impact assessment, published here, has considered the impacts on the UK materials reprocessing industry and the associated carbon savings from increased recycling following the introduction of extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR).

No formal assessment has been made of pEPR’s impact on the availability of recycled materials on the market.