The government has slashed a tax on glass containers — but a key figure warned the reduction might not be enough to save the industry.
Extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme administrator PackUK last week published the final base fees for the first year of the levy.
It said in-scope firms would be charged £192 per tonne for glass placed on the market to cover or protect goods in 2025/26, to cover the cost of managing it after use.
This is down from £240 in the latest provisional figures, published last December, and from £330 in initial estimates set out last summer. It is also the lowest tax under the scheme and less than half the charges on plastic and fibre-based composite material.
The latest revisions follow a concerted campaign from the glass industry, which this month warned companies were rethinking their packaging choices as a result of the levy.
However, British Glass director Nick Kirk said the final figures were “disappointing” and insisted that the scheme as it stood “risks killing off the UK glass industry”.
“This small reduction in the base fees does very little to ease the industry’s concerns around the disparity in unit costs between competing packaging formats,” he added. “The fees still favour lighter, less recyclable packaging.”
PackUK said the fees were calculated using packaging tonnages reported by producers for and waste management costs cited by councils. “The methodology has been rigorously tested with stakeholders including producers, compliance schemes and local authorities,” it added.
