Last week, I led a Westminster Hall debate on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and its impact upon glass packaging manufacturers.
EPR is intended to hold packaging manufacturers responsible for the costs of managing their products throughout their lifecycle, rendering them cost neutral to local authorities, and to improve recycling rates as part of a move to a circular economy. This is a laudable goal. But, as I laid out during the debate, the way EPR has been designed risks decimating the glass industry whilst doing little to encourage recycling and, perversely, encouraging ever greater use of environmentally harmful plastics.
EPR sees packaging producers charged a levy for their products to cover the costs of managing and recycling waste. The glass industry has been given no clarity on the costs it will face. Final figures for EPR fees won’t be published until June, even though glass producers have been liable since April. Charges will be made retrospectively, meaning there is no way for producers to recover costs from their customers. Plastic and aluminium beverage container producers will face no fees until October 2027, at the earliest. It gets worse; rather than using unit count to determine fees, the Government has chosen to use weight. This is disastrous for glass, which can be up twenty times heavier than other packaging options. Despite representing just 5% of in scope material, glass has been estimated to be facing 30% of EPR costs.
The inevitable consequence will be product switching, and a month into the scheme, we are seeing this already. Glass is the most recyclable packaging material. It is 100% recyclable, and can be recycled over and over again, with no loss of quality. It is already widely recycled through kerbside collections. In Wales they have achieved a 95% kerbside collection rate. But, a Government scheme intended to encourage greater recycling has created a situation whereby businesses can reduce their costs by switching to plastic containers.
Glass has been facing serious challenges in recent years from foreign, State subsidised, imports that often market at below UK factory cost price. With tariffs on glass imports having been abandoned post-Brexit, the industry stands on a precipice. The Government risks pushing it over the edge.
It isn’t just glass manufacturers that stand to lose out. As a result of DEFRA’s inadequate regulatory framework, pubs will pay EPR costs, despite disposing of their waste through commercial contracts. EPR will force them to pay for the same thing twice. DEFRA has recognised this flaw, but has failed to address it. As a result, a large pub faces a bill of an additional £2,000 per year, at a time of huge pressure on the hospitality industry. Costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers, with DEFRA’s own estimates suggesting 85% of EPR costs will ultimately be met by the public, who continue to be squeezed by stubbornly high costs of living.
The Government has refused to act on the serious issues I have relentlessly highlighted. Instead, they point to re-use schemes and fee modulation as magic bullets. Fee modulation will see fees adjusted to reflect the recyclability of materials. But it will not be introduced for another two years and even then, there is no certainty that glass fees will be reduced. The industry is keen to implement re-use, but this will require massive infrastructure investment and buy in from across the supply chain. It will take time, estimated to be at least a decade, time the industry simply does not have if it is to stave off calamity.
The Government seems determined to plough on in the face of all opposition to this ill-thought through scheme. The consequences of this stubborn refusal to listen will be the decimation of the British glass packaging industry, job losses, ever greater use of plastics, higher costs for consumers, reliance upon imported glass that has no carbon mitigation whatsoever and another death blow to our hospitality industry.
But even now, it isn’t too late. The Government should pause implementation of EPR, at least until October 2027, when fees for other products will come into effect. It should use that time to engage with the industry and to address the fundamentally unfair and ultimately counterproductive flaws in the scheme.
We all want to see more recycling, and businesses held accountable for the waste they produce. But to do so by destroying a great British industry, one that should be the cornerstone of a circular economy, would be a tragic mistake.
Government Must Act to Ensure Level Playing Field for Glass
