Blue Planet II and the subsequent push to eliminate single-use plastics from retail supply chains may have demonstrated consumers’ considerable influence in driving environmental change, but not all companies can be relied upon to make adequate changes of their own free will, even if they are being pushed by shoppers. Legislation is also important, and finding the right system to regulate food and drinks producers is key.
The government is currently consulting on changes to producer responsibility when it comes to packaging use and recycling. And although the shape of the new system is not yet clear, it looks like we’re set for the most radical shake-up to packaging rules since the introduction of the Packaging Waste Regulations in 1997.
“The UK Packaging Waste Regulations were introduced 22 years ago to stimulate recycling and help the UK to meet national targets set by the EU Packaging Directive,” recalls Adrian Hawkes, the policy director of Valpak, which is the largest environmental compliance scheme in the UK. “The system has proved a great success, with packaging recycling and recovery in the UK exceeding targets and rising from 33 per cent in 1998 to 70.2 per cent in 2017. However, the system was not developed to address the challenges we face today, so it is not surprising that it is time to implement reform.”
The latest Circular Economy Package has been adopted throughout Europe, including in the UK. It includes a requirement for packaging producers to fund at least 80 per cent of the cost of recycling. For UK producers, it arrives at the same time as a concerted push to transform the whole extended producer responsibility (EPR) system. Consultation on a new structure for EPR is underway, with changes planned for 2023.
Under the UK’s current market-led scheme, businesses with a turnover above £2 million, or which place more than 50 tonnes of packaging onto the market, are required to report annually on the volume of packaging they generate, and to acquire sufficient evidence in the form of packaging recovery notes (PRNs) to demonstrate that they have financed recycling.
In recent years, Valpak has analysed alternative schemes across Europe to identify the most effective elements of different producer responsibility systems, and to identify those elements of operational models which are most effective and efficient in delivering producer responsibility’s main aims. Of the options put forward by the government in its current consultation, the two most likely to be considered suitable are the single monopoly scheme model and the so called ‘Enhanced, near-to-business-as-usual’ model, which involves compliance schemes operating in a closely managed, but free-market, situation.
Unlike the UK’s current approach, under the monopoly model a single new organisation would administer the whole system, including all liaison with producers, and deal with their registration and data. It also takes responsibility for funding collections via local authorities and achieving the required national targets. Monopoly systems have been commonplace across many other European countries and have “proven effective at driving consistency of collections and high recycling rates from a low base”, Hawkes says, but many of these were started ahead of the rollout of extensive kerbside collections such as those now in place across the UK. A number of countries are now considering switching to a more competitive model in a drive to better manage costs and provide choice to producers.
Monopolies have been shown to deliver successful national communications campaigns, but their size means they are normally less able to offer flexibility or respond quickly to market trends. When it comes to cost, a monopoly scheme may also have less incentive to reduce fees and drive innovation, Hawkes explains, even when they are ‘not for profit,’ as this does not necessarily mean they are efficient. In Germany, for example, costs fell by more than half when dissolution of the single scheme became a possibility, and most of the worries people had about falling recycling rates and reduced material quality did not, in fact, occur.
By contrast, the ‘Enhanced, near-to-business-as-usual’ system includes a number of highly regulated compliance schemes in competition with each other, providing producer choice. It is likely to work in a similar way to the current arrangements for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) compliance in the UK, where schemes are allocated a certain recycling target to achieve each year, based on the volume of material produced by their members. They then contract with local authorities or other collectors to manage the logistics and prove the recycling has been done properly.
“High levels of consumer participation in recycling schemes is essential,” says Hawkes. “If householders choose not to recycle, even highly efficient systems will prove redundant. Valpak believes that any new system should include a centrally-funded communications programme, both to encourage consumers to recycle, and to remove any doubt around what can, and cannot, be included in collections.”
One way to fund this, he says, would be to remove, or reduce, the ‘de minimis rule’, whereby only companies over a certain size need to contribute to costs. “We currently have one of the highest thresholds in Europe,” Hawkes explains, “so introducing a flat fee for smaller companies could generate significant extra funding which could be used to contribute to a comprehensive communications campaign.”
With the publication of the final Circular Economy Package last year, producers have been called on to pay the full net cost of recycling. But, as Valpak points out, there are still many questions left to answer, such as: Should companies be rewarded or penalised for recyclability in packaging design? And should the new system include an option for UK-only processing?
Responding to the first of these two questions, Hawkes is clear that the answer should be yes and, indeed, this is a requirement under the EU Circular Economy Package. “Under any future model we would expect there to be a system whereby packaging that is considered more recyclable would pay a lower fee than that for the same weight on non-recyclable packaging in order to encourage better design,” he says. “The precise details of this are still to be determined but it will be critical to ensure there is a consistent list of material categories and, hopefully, that a consistent approach is taken across different countries.”
Going forward, he stresses that robust data and an accurate baseline will be essential for producers looking to reduce their packaging footprint. The UK currently recycles 47 per cent of plastic packaging, so meeting the 70 per cent Plastics Pact target by 2025 is a big step up. “There will not be one single answer, and collaboration will be essential, but working with accurate, detailed data will always be the first step,” Hawkes says.
