Close Menu
News

Miles Beale: ‘So much wrong’ with EPR scheme

The UK government needs to “engage very, very quickly” with drinks businesses, urged the CEO of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), as the parameters surrounding the impending Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme remain unclear.

Design-packaging-spirits-business
The trade has voiced concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the proposed EPR scheme in the UK

Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, said the EPR scheme has replaced duty as the number one concern for the trade body’s members.

The UK government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) intends to implement the EPR scheme this year. Its aim is to hold producers accountable for packaging waste.

Under the EPR scheme, producers will have to report how much packaging they release into the market and pay associated fees. However, the fees are just one aspect of the proposal that are still unclear.

WSTA’s Beale said: “Defra snuck out revised cost estimates at £240 (US$298) per tonne [for glass], which was well above the mid-point of the range they’d previously announced, and that says quite a lot.

“It’s very unhelpful because it was very unexpected. Our market was not expecting that cost to rise again. It feels very late in the day, very poorly communicated and we still don’t have definitive answers – how do you define household waste, or non-household waste? None of this is clear.

“The other worry is the timetable. We can see it being designed to start levying those costs from 1 April, but you won’t get the bill until 1 October. It is incredibly hard to try to do business now without a pricing strategy for the future; it is such a large potential cost.

“The government is, fundamentally, disrupting [business] by being unable to answer some fairly basic questions. There is so much wrong with this scheme. I’m not confident it will go ahead, or that it will work if they try.”

Beale said while the WSTA, and other members of the trade, have urged and lobbied the UK government to delay the scheme until it can be revised to work for both businesses and the environmental goals it aims to improve, the response from the UK government has been worryingly quiet.

“I keep trying to be clear,” he stressed, “we are calling for a delay not because we are trying to avoid saying we think it’s wrong and should be U-turned.

“We accept the policy is coming, and we accept the principle behind the policy – it doesn’t mean we like it, but we understand it. That is settled.

“What we’re trying to do is help the government put in place a policy that works. Our industry is the biggest user of glass, and glass is infinitely recyclable. This is a scheme that should work, but it has to be properly arranged and organised.

“Government ministers aren’t really speaking in private or public, but are asking officials to hold the line that the timetable won’t change. They will have to delay or come up with answers, or possibly both. We are desperate to explain to the government, and Defra in particular, how keen we are to devise something that works in practice.”

Plea to civil servants

Beale made a targeted appeal to those working in government, in a bid to draw attention and open conversation around the subject.

Miles Beale, alc
Miles Beale, WSTA chief executive

“I really hope there are some civil servants who are able to persuade ministers that they need to take this seriously and engage very, very quickly with businesses,” Beale said. “If they won’t talk to us, they’re cutting off an important source of information in us.

“Engage seriously and businesses will make this work, or indeed not work. It’s pretty urgent, and I hope ministers are looking at this openly and urgently.”

EPR scheme administrator appointment

Today (21 January 2025), Defra launched PackUK, the new EPR scheme administrator.

PackUK, which will be called PecynUK in Wales, will set the EPR scheme’s fees, raise the fees from obligated producers and make packaging waste disposal payments to local authorities in return for the ‘delivery of better collection and recycling services’.

Dr Margaret Bates, head of the PackUK, said: “The need for an effective EPR scheme that shifts the cost of managing household packaging waste to producers has never been more critical.

“The launch of PackUK marks an exciting leap forward in delivering this. We remain committed to working closely across the four nations, producers, and stakeholders across the collection and packaging value chain.

“Together, we aim to deliver a fair and collaborative EPR scheme that addresses the challenges of packaging waste and lays the foundation for a more sustainable and responsible approach to packaging.”

In the October 2024 issue of The Spirits Business magazine, we explored in detail why brands see the current EPR proposal as flawed.

Related news

New Grove ups sustainability with bio rum

The Cambridge debuts sustainability website

Paradiso Sustainability Summit returns for 2025

It looks like you're in Asia, would you like to be redirected to the Drinks Business Asia edition?

Yes, take me to the Asia edition No