Beer bottle ruling brings recycling to the pub

04/03/03

A legal ruling over the sharing of packaging waste recycling targets will mean that major pub, club, restaurant and hotel businesses will now be obliged to recycle drink bottles.

Under the Packaging Regulations, which are designed to encourage reduction and recycling of packaging waste throughout the supply chain, the legal obligation to recycle beer, soft drink and mixer bottles supplied to licensed premises for consumption on site has - up to now - extended only as far as those supplying pubs and other hospitality premises. This has now changed with a ruling that premises serving drinks in or from bottles are ‘sellers’ rather than ‘end users’ of packaging, and hence obliged to recycle - 48% in the case of glass bottles.

Many smaller and medium-sized businesses are, however, unlikely to be affected by the change as the Regulations do not apply unless a business handles at least 50 tonnes of packaging per year, and has an annual turnover of £2 million or more.

Brewers will still be subject to the Regulations but, will be now only considered as ‘packers/fillers’ when supplying bottled drinks to pubs and other ‘sellers’. Thus, their obligation to recycle will be reduced to 37% for such supplies.

The impact of the change is also likely to extend to other types of packaging, with hotels, for example, being considered ‘sellers’ of packaging associated with bath and toiletry products provided for guests, and restaurants, cafés and other premises serving food being ‘sellers’ where they provide customers with milk, sauce and other catering portion packs.

Jeff Cooper, Producer Responsibility Policy Manager at the Environment Agency, said:

"The biggest impact of the change is likely to be felt by pub, club, hotel and restaurant chains, who will need to register with the Environment Agency (or the appropriate regulator in Scotland or Northern Ireland) or one of the approved packaging producer responsibility compliance schemes for the first time, and demonstrate that they are meeting legal recycling and recovery obligations. But all existing registered companies should check and recalculate their obligations to recycle’

The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations were introduced in 1997 in line with the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC).

Jeff Cooper added:

"Businesses in the UK have performed well so far, recycling 42 per cent and recovering 48 per cent of packaging waste in 2001. But targets this year are tougher than ever with a recovery target of nearly five million tonnes of packaging waste in 2002, which is why we urge affected businesses to recalculate their obligations and to contact the Environment Agency, local business advisory services, or their compliance scheme, if they have any questions or concerns."

Newly obligated businesses in England and Wales will have to register either with the Environment Agency or with an appropriate compliance scheme by 31 December 2002. Those who fail to register and fulfil their recycling obligations for 2002 will be subject to enforcement action as outlined in the Agency’s Enforcement and Prosecutions Policy.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The UK introduced the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations in 1997 to implement the EC Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive’s (94/62/EC) recovery and recycling targets. The regulations place on certain businesses three main obligations: to register with the Environment Agency and provide data on the packaging handled by the business; to carry out specified tonnages of recovery and recycling of packaging waste calculated on the basis of the tonnage handled by he business, the national recovery and recycling targets for the year and the percentage obligation for the activity of that the business carries out on packaging; to certify that the necessary recovery and recycling has been carried out.

The activity obligations associated with each of these activities are raw material manufacturing – 6 per cent; converting –9 per cent; packer/filler – 37 per cent; selling – 48 per cent.

The change in the interpretation of the law follows a legal challenge by Valpak. The result of the case hinged on whether breweries or licensed premises were regarded as the seller of beer bottles. The court decided that the sellers under the regulations were pubs, clubs and other licensed premises - not the brewers - and were therefore obligated for the selling obligation under the Producer Responsibility (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997.

[ More Industry News ]