Over three quarters of businesses still unaware of Plastic Packaging Tax  

With just a day to go until its implementation, 77 per cent of British retail and manufacturing businesses are still unaware of the impending Plastic Packaging Tax, a new study has found.

Research conducted by YouGov, on behalf of leading waste management firm Veolia, found that only a fifth (22%) of the manufacturing and retail businesses asked had already opted for recycled content in their packaging.

The tax, which will come into force from 1 April, places a £200 per tonne levy on producers or importers of plastic packaging if they do not include 30 per cent recycled content.

Veolia noted that far more businesses must reduce their reliance on virgin materials to reach the UK’s Net Zero goals.

“The UK’s Plastic Packaging Tax is the right way to start getting businesses to push sustainability up the agenda, but it needs to go further. A tax escalator would make choosing to incorporate recycled content in packaging both economically and environmentally preferable to using virgin materials,” Gavin Graveson, Veolia Northern Europe Zone senior executive vice president, commented.

“Not only could the UK save up to 2.89 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year if all plastic packaging included 30 per cent recycled content, it would also incentivise investment in domestic infrastructure which could make the UK a world leader in plastics recycling.”

According to the study, which explored the views of British-based senior decision makers across retail and manufacturing businesses, the majority of businesses support an escalator in percentage of recycled content threshold (63%) and cost charge (50%) as an incentive to use recycled content.

Among those who had made changes to their plastic packaging, two thirds (66%) have reduced the amount of unnecessary or avoidable plastic packaging and nearly three in five (58%) now use recycled content. While over half (54%) have changed the packaging design to make it more recyclable, 39 per cent have chosen alternative materials to plastic for their packaging.

Veolia is part of the international cross value chain Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), currently made up of nearly thirty member companies, and this has committed over $1 billion to develop large scale solutions that will minimise and manage plastic waste and promote solutions for used plastics.