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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to his Department’s Resources and Waste Strategy, how his Department’s proposals to introduce extended producer responsibility for packaging will (a) promote resource efficiency, (b) move towards a circular economy and (c) minimise the residual waste produced.

In the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy we set out our ambitions of doubling resource productivity and eliminating avoidable waste by 2050. Extended Producer Responsibility is an established policy approach adopted in many countries around the world. It gives producers an incentive to make better, more sustainable decisions at the product design stage, as well as placing the financial cost for managing these products once they become waste, on producers. To be more efficient in the way we use our stock of natural resources we need to rethink how we design and make products and invoke the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

The implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging will see the introduction of modulated fees for producers placing packaging on the market. These fees will be varied, with higher costs placed on producers using packaging that is less easily recycled, helping to ensure more circularity within the system, more recycling, and less waste going to the residual waste stream. The shift in the cost of managing packaging waste produced by households from the public purse onto producers will also incentivise producers to consider if a packaging item is necessary, encouraging packaging reduction and a more efficient use of resources. Producers will also be required to meet ambitious recycling targets.

In certain circumstances, fees could be modulated to deliver funding to support additional collections and upgrading of infrastructure to allow recycling of currently unrecyclable materials. To meet ambitious recycling targets across all materials, producers will need to invest in the infrastructure required to enable these targets to be met. We also consulted on the introduction of reuse targets within Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging, which will help encourage circularity, a more efficient use of resources, and prevent waste entering the residual waste stream.

The second consultation on the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging closed on 4 June 2021 and we are currently analysing the responses.