News

Some costs of setting up and running the electronic packaging recovery note system are to be passed on to waste reprocessors even though the ePRN scheme has only been running for a month.

To support the online National Packaging Waste Database, fees for 2007 will increase by £8 for direct producers of waste, £6 for scheme members, £26 for large reprocessors, and £5 for small reprocessors.

However, the Environment Agency has made some technical changes to the system that it claims will save around £100,000 in running costs.

The criterion for submission of operational plans by large individually registered producers has been changed from handling 500 tonnes to ‘an obligation of at least 500 tonnes’, meaning almost 100 businesses will not need to prepare an operational plan.

The number of plans submitted is expected to fall from 200 in 2006 to 115 in 2007.