Due to the deferral of the new Extended Producer Responsibility scheme to 2025, the existing Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 (as amended) will remain in force in 2024. As the 2007 Regulations only include recycling targets for obligated producers up until the end of 2023, we have now set the following recycling targets for 2024.

The 2024 targets for paper, glass, aluminium, steel and plastic will remain the same as for 2023:

• Paper  83%  
• Glass  82%    
• Aluminium 69%          
• Steel 87%       
• Plastic 61%

Points to note:

• The target for wood will increase by seven percentage points from 35% in 2023 to 42% in 2024.
• The overall recycling target will increase by three percentage points from 77% to 80%.
• The glass remelt target (a sub target of the glass target) will increase by three percentage points from 72% in 2023 to 75% in 2024.

The legislation setting these targets for England and Wales was signed by the Defra Minister on 21 November 2023 and will now be laid in Parliament for a minimum of 21 days before coming into force on 1 January 2024.

The legislation setting the same targets for Scotland and Northern Ireland will also come into force on 1 January 2024.

Questions and Answers

Question: In relation to Northern Ireland (NI), does NI sit under the UK or EU Directive regulations on recycling targets? If under EU, does the 65% by 2025 recycling target still apply to NI?

Answer: There is an England and Wales Statutory Instrument (SI) and separate SIs for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

These targets are designed to ensure that the UK, including NI, comply within the directive minimum target.

Question: Is there any information or landfill targets and incineration targets?

Answer: Defra does not currently measure landfill and incineration data directly. As new requirements come in, as part of that, we will be collecting more data from local authorities and packaging waste ending up in residual waste.

Question: Pleased to see wood packaging recycling targets have gone up. Are there now revised timelines for pallet reuse targets? In relation to the targets for 2025/30, are there now revised timelines?

Answer: It is still Defra’s intention to set packaging recycling targets for 2025/30 under the new regulations that will implement the new EPR provisions.

Some further reflections are now taking place given the deferral of EPR fees as well as some final decisions around Simpler Recycling and the Deposit Return Scheme. The work on reuse and refill packaging policy is ongoing and additional resource has been allocated to consider this. We plan to put proposals forward in 2025.

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