What is Extended Producer Responsibility?

We think Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is vital if we are to achieve our aims of ending litter and waste and is an essential building block of a circular economy. 

It is a form of the “polluter pays" principle and mandates that people who are putting items onto the market should be responsible for them at every point in their lifecycle, rather than just until the point of sale. 

This principle of EPR can be applied to a range of products. For example, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations, which encourage the recovery, reuse and recycling of electronic products and components, are a form of extended producer responsibility.  

What is Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR)?  

pEPR means that the companies that put the packaging on the market are incentivised to reduce the amount they create and increase their use of refillable and easily recyclable alternatives. It also sees them financially penalised for using non-recyclable packaging. 

It offers a meaningful chance to tackle the root causes of many environmental problems by fully adopting the “polluter pays” principle. It shifts the costs of pollution onto those who place large amounts of packaging on the market.  

The first payments under pEPR have been made by producers from October 2025 and are lower for producers that switch to more recyclable packaging. These payments are used by local authorities to fund waste collection and processing services, a bill which was previously footed by the taxpayer. 

Litter and pEPR 

Although it is placed on the market by producers, it is local authorities, other bodies such as National Highways, and, ultimately, the taxpayer that pay the price of managing the millions of tonnes of poorly designed, excessive and unnecessary packaging, in line with their statutory duty to keep their land free of litter.

The effort of this endless clean-up also falls to our many thousands of Litter Heroes volunteers, who work tirelessly to help to clear littered packaging from our streets, parks and beaches.

Currently the cost of litter clearance will not be included in pEPR in England and Northern Ireland but will be in Wales and Scotland. We would like to see the cost of clearing up litter added to the scheme across the whole of the UK.

It is estimated that the cost of managing littered packaging by local authorities is up to £384m a year, but this figure only reflects a fraction of the cost.

Hidden costs

It does not include the costs incurred by other duty bodies (such as road and rail authorities, water authorities and national park authorities) or the contribution of litter-picking volunteers, nor does it reflect the resources that are allocated by local authorities and charities to litter prevention campaigns across the country.

Finally, the figure does not factor in the environmental cost of the thousands of tonnes of plastic waste that is not captured by street cleansing and finds its way into our countryside or through our watercourses into our oceans.