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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed extended producer responsibility scheme on the number of incinerators that would be in operation.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an established policy approach adopted by many countries around the world, across a broad range of products and materials. It gives producers an incentive to make better, more sustainable decisions at the product design stage, including decisions that make it easier for products to be reused or recycled, and places the financial cost of managing products once they reach end of life on producers. We have considered the approach of many international EPR for packaging schemes that are in operation in finalising the approach to EPR for packaging in the UK.

We published an impact assessment on our proposed measures alongside the Government response to the 2021 consultation on introducing EPR for packaging in the UK. This assessment outlined how overall packaging recycling rates are expected to increase from 63% in 2021 to 76% in 2030 under a producer-led EPR scheme. These targets exceed standards currently set for 2030 for members of the European Union. Increased recycling of packaging waste will also mean that less packaging waste is sent to landfill or incinerated. We will publish an assessment of the impacts of EPR on residual waste infrastructure, including incinerators, in due course.

I met with a number of industry representatives in December 2022 to discuss how the Government will ensure the governance of the EPR Scheme Administrator (SA) is transparent and includes representation from industry. We will continue working closely with industry throughout the development of the SA and intend to use the private sector to deliver many of the SA functions. We have also recently embarked on an eight-week series of industry-wide Sprint events bringing together key stakeholders looking to shape the future vision of waste reforms.