A working group that provides advice to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has come up with a range of ways to improve the producer responsibility system for packaging.
SCM has seen a document called Review of Producer Responsibility Obligations (packaging Waste) Regulations and coherence of PR regimes that puts forward a number of suggestions from the members of the working group.
These include making accreditation longer than one year with three years or the possibility of making accreditation open-ended unless there is a reason to remove.
It also suggests that free riders remains a problem with 1,000 to 1,5000 companies estimated to be not taking part in the producer responsibility system.
The document also notes that there is an uneven playing field created by PERNs for export of plastics and that other criteria could be used for differentiating the PRN/PERN to be used, as is the case for glass.
It has also suggested that more should be done to publicise the regulations as there are still a large number of companies who are not aware of their responsibility under any of the regimes.
