{"id":1181,"date":"2026-06-17T11:53:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:13:31","slug":"composite-packaging-producers-potentially-overcharged-millions-under-pepr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/composite-packaging-producers-potentially-overcharged-millions-under-pepr\/","title":{"rendered":"Composite packaging producers potentially overcharged millions under pEPR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Extended<\/h4>\n

Fibre-based composite (FBC) packaging producers may have been \u2018significantly overcharged\u2019 as part of the packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) scheme, new research finds.<\/h4>\n

According to the analysis, commissioned by ACE UK (The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment)<\/a>, the \u00a3461 per tonne pEPR fee for FBCs has been \u2018incorrectly calculated\u2019, with the true figure being \u00a334\/t lower and potentially as high as \u00a392\/t.<\/p>\n

Applied to the fees producers paid for FBC materials last year, this suggests that fees could have been overpaid by between \u00a36.3m and \u00a313.7m.<\/p>\n

ACE UK has submitted the report to PackUK, the scheme administrator for the pEPR scheme<\/a>, and called on them to \u2018urgently review\u2019 future fees.<\/p>\n

A team of researchers at compliance scheme Beyondly<\/a> authored the review, led by packaging experts Charlotte Davies, CIWM Early Careers President<\/a>, Dr Liz Wood, and Alex Hilton.<\/p>\n

The report identifies several areas where it says current assumptions materially overstate the cost burden applied to FBC packaging.<\/p>\n

The most significant of these relates to the cost to local authorities of collecting packaging for recycling or disposal, with the scheme currently charging \u00a3509\/t to collect FBC compared with \u00a3264\/t for paper and card.<\/p>\n

The report says this disparity is despite the two waste streams having \u2018very similar properties\u2019.<\/p>\n

As the collection figure is calculated based on the volume of packaging rather than its weight, Beyondly found that this may also overstate the amount of space taken up by FBCs in two ways.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the report says the model \u2018appears to assume\u2019 that more of the FBC category is made of liquid cartons than is actually the case, which has a significant impact as cartons take up more space in collection vehicles.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the report found the model assumes that non-liquid FBCs have the same bulk density as the card category, which is predominantly made up of bulky corrugated cardboard boxes.<\/p>\n

By using available data on both the liquid\/non-liquid split and the estimated bulk density of non-liquid FBCs, Beyondly found that the collection costs applied may have been \u2018significantly overstated\u2019.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the report, Charlotte Davies, Senior Consultant \u2013 Resource Efficiency & Circularity, Beyondly, said the current fee appears to be \u2018disproportionately high\u2019 for fibre-based composites, and data revisions could reduce the disposal fee by approximately 8%.<\/p>\n

Ben Powell, Head of External Affairs at ACE UK, commented: \u201cIt is clearly implausible to charge nearly twice as much for local authorities to collect a tonne of FBC than a tonne of paper and card.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of this discrepancy alone seems to have cost brands millions of pounds more than it should have done last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to continuing to work constructively with PackUK to ensure disposal fees are fair for all packaging types, which is essential if we want to make our shared sustainability goals a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Composite packaging producers potentially overcharged millions under pEPR<\/a> appeared first on Circular Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Fibre-based composite (FBC) packaging producers may have been \u2018significantly overcharged\u2019 as part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}