Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
EPR, or Extended Producer Responsibility (not to be confused with ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning!) is a government scheme with an aim to reduce the environmental impact of post-consumer waste by encouraging businesses to rethink their packaging.
After a few revisions, the final confirmed fees have been released, providing much-needed clarity for producers ahead of the first invoices in October 2025.
In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the scheme and base fees to bring you up to speed.
The recycling rate in the UK has lagged behind our European neighbours, where EPR has proven to be a success for several years.
So, the heat is on for the UK to catch up and increase investment in recycling infrastructure. The government has launched the next phase of its own EPR scheme, including base fees for 2025.
What is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)?
EPR places more liability on producers for the costs associated with the collection and disposal of packaging from their products. This involves reporting on the packaging they produce and for some, paying fees.
It has been stated that these fees will fund PackUK (the Scheme Administrator) and provide local authorities with additional income to cover the cost of recycling and disposing of waste packaging materials.
Am I Affected?
The regulations apply to all businesses, subsidiaries or groups (excluding charities) that import or supply packaging, (or carry out any other packaging activities) and are classed as a small producer or large producer.
Small producers include any business that:
- Has an annual turnover of more than £1 million
- Is responsible for importing or supplying more than 25 tonnes of packaging in the UK
- Does not exceed the large producer thresholds (below)
Large producers include any business that:
- Has an annual turnover of more than £2 million
- Is responsible for importing or supplying more than 50 tonnes of packaging in the UK
The definition of “packaging” is any material used to cover or protect goods, including anything that’s designed to be filled at point of sale, such as coffee cups.
Packaging activities include:
- Supplying packaged goods to the UK market under your own brand
- Placing goods into packaging
- Importing packaged products
- Owning an online marketplace
- Hiring or loaning out reusable packaging
- Supplying empty packaging
What Do I Need to Do?
All producers are required to report packaging data using the Report Packaging Data Portal. Small producers must submit this data once per year by 1st April, while large producers must do so twice a year – by 1st April and 1st October.
Packaging data includes:
- Packaging activity – how you supplied the packaging
- Packaging type – e.g. if it’s household or non-household
- Packaging class – whether it’s primary, secondary, shipment or tertiary
- Packaging material and weight
Producers must also submit Nation Data by 1st December 2025 if they carry out any of the following:
- Supply packaging directly to end users in the UK
- Supply empty packaging to UK organisations that aren’t legally obligated or are classed as a small organisation
- Hire or loan out reusable packaging
- Own an online marketplace for organisations outside of the UK to sell empty packaging and packaged goods to UK users
- Import packaged goods into the UK for personal use and discard the packaging
Nation data is information about which nation the UK packaging is supplied in and discarded in.
Large producers may need to do the following:
- Pay a waste management fee
- Pay scheme administrator costs
- Pay a charge to the environmental regulator
- Get Packaging Waste Recycling Notes (PRNs), or Packaging Waste Export Recycling Notes (PERNs)
- Assess packaging against the Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM)
2025 to 2026 Base Fees
Final confirmed base fees which will apply from 2025 to 2026:
| Material | Rate (£ per tonne) |
|---|---|
| Aluminium | 266 |
| Fibre-based composite | 461 |
| Glass | 192 |
| Paper and card | 196 |
| Plastic | 423 |
| Steel | 259 |
| Wood | 280 |
| Other* | 259 |
*All materials not listed above; such as bamboo, ceramic, copper, cork, hemp, rubber.
Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM)
Large producers must assess all household packaging against the Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM) and report this data to the environmental regulator by 1st October 2025.
The methodology rates each component that makes up packaging as red, amber or green depending on how easy it is to recycle.
- Red: Packaging has specifications that make it difficult to recycle at scale
- Amber: May experience challenges during collection and sortation, requires specialist infrastructure for reprocessing, the efficiency and output quality of reprocessing is affected, or there is some secondary material loss
- Green: Packaging is widely recyclable in the current UK infrastructure
The rating determines the disposal fee that will be charged for that packaging. The intention is that producers of highly recyclable packaging will pay less fees, while producers of less recyclable packaging will face higher fees.
Some packaging is exempt, including:
- Reused packaging, unless it has been imported into the UK
- Any packaging exported from the UK by the producer
- Drinks containers made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, steel or aluminium
- Drinks containers with a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in operation
- Non-household packaging
More Information
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The information in this article is correct at time of posting. For full details and future updates, visit the Gov website here.
