B7.3.1.2 Packaging Waste continued…
Individual Compliance Route
If you prefer, you can calculate your own recycling and recovery requirements and register yourself with your environmental regulator. If you choose this option, you must:
1. Assess how much packaging your business handles.
- Assess the amount and type of packaging your business handled or sold in the last calendar year and how you handled it (manufacturing, filling, etc).
- Calculate your obligation using the UK business recovery and recycling targets for each category of packaging material for that year.
2. Register with your environmental regulator.
- By the 7th April each year.
- Pay the annual registration fee.
3. Submit an operational plan.
- This is required if your recovery and recycling obligation is more than 500 tonnes.
- The operational plan shows how you intend to comply with the regulations.
- The plan is submitted to the Environment Agency.
4. Recycle and recover packaging waste.
- Once you have calculated your obligation, you need to recover or recycle an amount of packaging waste equivalent to your obligation.
- Obtain evidence that you have arranged and paid for recycling and recovery of packaging waste, in the form of electronic packaging waste recovery notes (ePRNs) and electronic packaging waste export recovery notes (ePERNs).
5. Confirm you have met your recovery and recycling obligations.
- You must submit a certificate of compliance, signed by a partner, director, company secretary or other senior member of staff, by 31 January each year to your environmental regulator.
6. Provide information to customers.
- If your main packaging activity is selling packaging or finished goods in packaging to the final user or consumer, you must tell your customers about return, recovery and collection facilities available to them and how they can reuse, recover and recycle packaging.