Defra has circulated their first newsletter since the change in government. The main focus is the recent publication of the EPR base fees that will be used to calculate producer costs for what is classed as househol packaging although this will also catch a lot of packaging that ends up in business waste.
There is also refernce to a change in the definition of shipment packaging and, of course, a reminder of the 1 October deadline for reporting data for the first half of 2024.
There is much consternation over the scale of the base fees, especially from the glass packaging industry. As an example, a drinks manufacturing company putting 10,000 tonnes of glass packaging onto the market in 2023 will be paying around £300k PRN costs. Next year, at the higher base fee level of £330/tonne, they will pay £3.3m just on the base fee. If PRNs next year average £100/tonne, they would pay another £740,000!