Are you confident or frustrated with continued Extended Producer Responsibility consultations?

Our best investment is always in our team so we can deliver the best possible services to our members, and to respond to new challenges. We have developed and added depth and expertise to our growing team.

Clarity on what to expect from EPR is important for the industry, but it`s equally important that the legislation is set up for success. We hope the continued consultations are taking place to ensure the latter. However, if these continue we risk falling behind other countries with EPR already operational and this will have knock-on effects from an environmental perspective.

Last year we completed commissioning of our Seaham recycled PET (rPET) plant, gaining regulatory and customer approvals for our product, we`ve commissioned our PP plant in Washington and completed the upgrade of our Aldridge facility. We`re in the process of developing a third HDPE line at Redcar which will add 14,000 tonnes of capacity and create more jobs. Since year end, a further £80m of capital has also been committed to deliver logistics for Scotland`s deposit return scheme. Frustrated doesn`t really go far enough, as we have been actively discussing and working through the finer details on EPR for almost four years now.

We really must make it happen as it is the key stimulus for so many of the other planned changes from the Resources and Waste Strategy in terms of driving up recycling, polluter pays, and phasing out hard to recycle packaging. However, I am confident that government now has its eyes firmly fixed on the ball and we should see progress before Christmas 2022 and a clear plan for implementation in 2023.