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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate the Department has made of the volume of plastic packaging placed on the UK market in the last year.

For 2024, there are two available estimates for the volume of plastic packing placed on the market for the UK. These estimates are based on different methodologies and data sources (PackFlow and Reported Packaging Data) and so produce slightly different figures.

PackFlow is a report commissioned by Defra to provide information on the total flows of packaging in the UK and has historically been used to estimate the total amount of material placed on the market.

The Reported Packaging Data provides new data on total packaging supplied and placed on the UK market and became available after the Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) came into force on 1 January 2025.

Table1: Estimates of the volume of plastic packaging placed on the market, UK

Note: The arisings data sourced from the Reported Packaging Data system is based on data for H1 and H2 for 2024 (as submitted in October 2024 and April 2025). Data as of 2 June 2025

The full methodology and figures relating to previous years, can be found in the UK Statistics on Waste publication.