The Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance (EXPRA), representing 38 national packaging recycling & recovery organizations, has welcomed UK Packaging PRO as a new member.
UK Packaging PRO has been appointed by PackUK as the national Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) for the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) scheme. UK Packaging PRO is backed by over 100 organisations including retailers, product manufacturers, packaging producers, NGOs and waste management organisations.
The organisation plans to work closely with PackUK, governments, local authorities, the waste and recycling sector, and obligated producers to improve recycling rates by supporting innovation and improvements in how packaging is made, used, collected and recycled; supporting local authorities with data, insight and practical tools and leading efforts to improve and reduce packaging and support better recycling.
“Joining EXPRA is an important move for us,” said Karen Graley, head of UK Packaging PRO. “After years of debate on how to implement EPR effectively in the UK, we now have a system designed to be transparent, efficient, and producer-led. Through EXPRA, we will exchange knowledge, share best practices, and learn from international experience to ensure that UK EPR operates closer to the genuine non-profit model proven across Europe.”
In February, editor at large Elisabeth Skoda spoke to CITEO’s Jean Hornain and EXPRA’s Hester Klein Lankhorst as part of our Packaging Europe podcast, as CITEO France recently joined EXPRA. The episode discusses the motivations behind this decision, the implications for producers and the wider challenges and opportunities for EPR systems.
In line with the upcoming Circular Economy Act, last month the PRO Circularity Alliance published a position paper advocating for a Central European EPR Register to harmonize national EPR systems, reduce compliance costs, and improve transparency across Europe. The Alliance calls for a shared administrative and digital infrastructure to exchange data between producers, PROs, and national authorities.
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