How the UK Extended Producer Responsibility Model Is Mitigating Recycling Costs for Local Government

Plastic bottle waste

How the UK Extended Producer Responsibility Model Is Mitigating Recycling Costs for Local Government

The Extended Producer Responsibility Model (EPR) is a new piece of UK legislation set to come into force in 2023. This blog will explain what the model looks like and how it can help local businesses with their recycling.

What Is the Extended Producer Responsibility Model?

The EPR has been designed to shift the cost of managing packaged waste onto those responsible for producing it. This policy aims to incentivise producers to shift towards using more recyclable packaging to fight climate change. 

This reform will introduce modulated fees based on the positive and negative aspects of packaging put on the UK market. Easily recyclable packaging would be subject to lower fee rates, whereas unrecyclable or more difficult to recycle packaging would see an increase in fee rates.

The aim of the tax is to provide a clear economic incentive for businesses to use recycled plastic in the manufacture of plastic packaging, which will create greater demand for this material.

In turn, this will stimulate increased levels of recycling and collection of plastic waste, diverting it away from landfill or incineration

This also means that businesses are encouraged more than ever to bale more products and sell them for a profit, rather than them entering landfill and causing damage to the environment.

Assigning this responsibility to producers is aimed to provide incentives to prevent wastes at the source, promote product design for the environment and support the achievement of public recycling and materials management goals.

Discover how you can make money from different types of waste in the two blogs below:

How Can It Help Local Governments With Their Recycling Efforts?

The ERP scheme is aimed to help businesses improve their recycling program’s efficiency, leading to fewer costs and improved reputation. This is because ERP also offers benefits to society, in which individual consumers pay the cost of their own consumption, rather than general taxpayers.

Those who produce waste must think about the end-of-life process for the product to make it either reusable or recycled more easily. Although this may seem like extra responsibility, recycling your waste can actually create new sources of revenue with a cardboard crusher.

The system works by producers paying into the scheme either through the supply chain or directly. The scheme is moderated to prevent waste crime to ensure fairness along the supply chain.

Because modulated fees are encouraged, producers pay for a lower fee for products that are easy to reuse or recycle and higher fees for products that are more difficult to handle at the end of the service life. This also provides a challenge for packaging designers and will encourage continuous innovation in the industry as well.

Want to Know More About the Extended Producer Responsibility and What it Could Mean for Your Council?

We’re passionate about helping councils with their waste more effectively here at Greenbank. That’s why we thought it would be worth sharing a helpful website with you that collates loads of resources on the EPR and what it will mean for local government from 2023 onwards.

https://www.oecd.org/environment/extended-producer-responsibility.htm

We’ve also developed a handy checklist you can use to identify the improvements you can add to every part of the waste management process. In it, you’ll find intangible sections you may usually overlook and how you can ensure ROI by partnering with an efficient waste management provider. Inside, we cover:

  • Waste audits
  • Intelligent solutions
  • Customer service
  • Installation
  • Cost-savings

To explore the checklist, just click the link below.

https://greenbankwastesolutions.com/download-our-waste-management-checklist

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