The government has been forced to abandon the enforcement of new rules on the reporting of packaging data, in yet another backtrack on its landmark environmental reforms.
The Environment Agency, which will be in charge of enforcement, announced an eight-month stay of execution for companies who fail to hit the deadline for reporting packaging data, ahead of the introduction of extended producer responsibility (EPR).
All large producers and compliance schemes were due to have begun providing packaging data by 1 October. But The Grocer revealed earlier this month industry leaders were warning of administrative chaos, with the deadline looming despite the launch of producer fees under EPR having been postponed until at least the end of 2025.
This week in a message to companies, Defra said: “As you are aware, the EPR payments for packaging have been deferred for 12 months and will not apply until October 2025.
“In light of this, and to support producers, the Environment Agency (regulator in England) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (regulator in Scotland) have now issued a regulatory position statement (RPS) which confirms no legal enforcements will be taken as long as data, as per the regulations, is submitted by 31 May 2024 for businesses registered in England and Scotland.”
Despite the announcement, Defra urged companies to use “all reasonable endeavours” to hit the deadline, which is 1 April 2024 in the case of Scotland, “wherever possible”.
The delay comes weeks after Defra launched a new ‘report packaging data’ (RPD) service in a bid to help “fast-track” companies uploading their data, as well as a new helpline to aid businesses, who have complained of mass confusion over the EPR rollout.
Sources had told The Grocer the service was likely to be swamped with companies unclear over the regulations, with Defra having also launched a consultation with the industry into the “clarity and operability” of the EPR rollout, which is understood to have received strongly critical feedback.
Companies were furious that the new reporting requirements had come in alongside – not instead of – the existing PRN data requirements, landing companies with a red tape nightmare.
This week the enforcement delay was welcomed by a leading supplier source who said: “It’s only right that enforcement action is only used when absolutely necessary, if businesses have not supplied data and avoided steps to support them to provide the right information.”
However, Louisa Goodfellow, policy manager at compliance organisation Ecosurety, said whilst it would be greeted with “relief” by many producers, it would now make the job of collecting data in time for the delayed EPR launch even more difficult.
“It’s great Defra have realised the data requirements are a struggle for compliance schemes and producers alike given the details around them are still being finalised,” she said.
“So a relaxing of enforcement until the end of May next year is a relief. But it will now will be harder to motivate producers and our members to get the data in.”
Andrew McCaffery, chief strategy officer at environmental compliance data specialist Ecoveritas, said the rollout of EPR was in chaos.
“So the new system isn’t legally enforceable yet, but the old system is now running in tandem with it,” he said.
“The original EPR deadlines are remaining as ‘soft’ targets that the government can only encourage companies to hit, with the new enforceable deadline now being the end of May – but this is different from the existing deadline under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007, which hasn’t changed.
“It’s a mess. And it only takes getting one detail wrong about what is and isn’t enforceable and when, to land a business in serious trouble.”
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