Defra held a business Readiness Forum webinar on 14th April with a number of slides and with some added commentary that will be published on youtube in the not too distant future.
Of interest that is not on the slides was the answer to a query about the timeline for the publication of the estimated ‘Full Net Cost ‘waste’ fees that will have to be paid by producers of household packaging in addition to PRN costs. This will apply to any business that supplies packaged products for household use ie where the packaging that when waste, would be expected to be collected by Local Authorities.
- A Defra official stated that the initial estimate would be issued ‘soon’, likely to be after the pre-local election (4th May) purdah period.
- There will then be a revised estimate issued at the end of the year once they have analysed the first 6 months of 2023 data.
- The final fees, however, won’t be calculated and published until June 2024.
This would suggest that this fee is likely to have to be paid in two tranches – middle and end of 2024 and subsequent years.
The Environment Agency is also preparing a revised version of the Technical Interpretations document that when published, will sit alongside the current version here. Amost impossible to find if you don’t have the link but this is a really useful document to understand detailed definitions and producer requirements.