Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made in delivering the Collections and Packaging Reforms programme.

The Government has passed or is on track to pass all the necessary legislation to deliver the Collection and Packaging Reforms Programme, and making strong progress on achieving our target of 65% recycling by 2035 in England, after a decade of stagnating recycling rates.

For Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR), The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations came into effect on 1 January 2025 and on Friday 27 June 2025, PackUK confirmed 2025 base fees (fees for Year 1 of pEPR) for eight packaging material categories. Packaging producers liable under the regulations have been invoiced this month.

In January 2025, the legislation for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers in England and Northern Ireland came into force. A new organisation called UK Deposit Management Organisation Ltd (UK DMO) will run the scheme, and were officially appointed in May 2025 (England & NI) and June 2025 (Scotland). UK DMO will engage regularly with shops, drinks companies, environmental groups, and the public to help design and run the scheme.

Simpler Recycling has now come into effect for all workplaces with 10 or more full-time equivalent employees in England. This requires workplaces to separately recycle dry mixed recycling (plastic, metal, glass), paper and card, and food waste. By 31 March 2026, local authorities will be required to collect the core recyclable waste streams from all households in England. This includes introducing weekly food waste collections for all homes, unless a transitional arrangement applies (a transitional arrangement is where a local authority has agreed a later implementation date set in regulations). Micro-firms (workplaces with fewer than 10 employees), have until 31 March 2027 to comply, and plastic film collections from all households and workplaces will also be required by then.

Finally, to help tackle the problem of illegal waste practices and outdated record-keeping, we are introducing mandatory digital waste tracking, which will become available for all permitted and licensed sites receiving waste in April 2026 and mandatory for permitted and licensed waste receiving sites from October 2026 in the first phase.