Updated illustrative fees for UK's packaging Extended Producer Responsibility legislation

The fees, released by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), reflect the most recent data submitted by large organisations in the industry.

The fees are calculated by dividing local authority packaging waste management costs (for household packaging waste) by the total amount of household packaging placed on the market.

The result is a rate that is expressed as a fee per tonne of packaging placed on the market.

The household tonnages in-scope of producer fees for each material category have been calculated by adding together tonnages that producers reported as household packaging and as packaging commonly disposed of in public bins, then subtracting the tonnages that producers reported as self-managed consumer waste.

Where producers submitted part-year figures, the data has been extrapolated proportionally up to the 12-month equivalent.

Defra says, 'As a result of using new data sources, the new illustrative base fees differ from the first release of illustrative base fees, however, they are still estimates, based on the best available evidence to date.

'Iterations are being released to provide updates for industry as we move towards final calculations, but they are not final fees.

'Final fees for the first year of packaging Extended Producer Responsibility will be released after 1 April 2025 (the deadline for reporting packaging supplied by registered producers in 2024).'

The requirements to report drinks containers for the calendar year 2023 only applied to England, Northern Ireland and Wales. These requirements will extend to Scotland for data from 2024 onwards. As a result, there is a risk that the 2023 Report Packaging Data online portal underestimates the amount of household glass packaging placed on the market.

To account for this, estimated tonnages placed on the market from Packflow’s 2023 Refresh Reports (the same as those used in the first release of illustrative base fees) have been used for glass instead of Report Packaging Data.

Report Packaging Data tonnage figures could be an underestimate as they do not include data from large producers who:

are required to report their data but have not reported

reported their data after 9 September 2024

The regulators have a duty to monitor the accuracy of packaging Extended Producer Responsibility data submitted into the Report Packaging Data online portal. These checks are ongoing.

Regulators are also working with producers to identify and correct possible data errors. As a result, the data used in the calculations may include reporting issues that have not yet been addressed.