Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which came into effect in October 2025, is regulation designed to make the producer (or brand owner or importer) financially and operationally responsible for the packaging they put on the market and for the waste and recycling that follows. However, analysis by Aquapak uncovers a complex and potentially confusing picture with plastic packaging often attracting a lower EPR fee than paper fibre composites – a contradictory outcome for a policy that’s meant to drive a shift away from plastic.
Currently, brand owners must report on the packaging materials they use, broken down by type and by tonnage placed on the market each year. Based on this data, they will pay a fee per tonne, which varies depending on the material category. From next year, this will evolve with the introduction of fee modulation – a red, amber, green (RAG) system defined under the Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM). In short, the more recyclable the packaging, the lower the fee. The less recyclable, the higher the fee.
Defining paper and recyclability
Over the past few years, there’s been a strong trend of plastic packaging being replaced with paper-based alternatives because they are considered more sustainable, biodegradable, and easier to recycle. However, while new paper-based solutions are being developed, the definition of what qualifies as “paper” and what counts as “recyclable” has become inconsistent and, in some cases, contradictory.
DEFRA currently states that any paper-based packaging containing more than 15% plastic is considered non-recyclable and therefore cannot be widely collected by councils. The OPRL (On-Pack Recycling Label) scheme has adopted the same rule, meaning any product above that threshold automatically loses the right to display the “widely recycled” logo.
However, DEFRA’s definition is compositional rather than performance-based. It assumes that more than 15% plastic means a product cannot be recycled, even if technically it can. This approach puts the UK out of step with the rest of Europe, where limits are higher (often 20–30% non-fibre content) and recyclability is assessed through testing rather than raw composition.
Paper, fibre composites, and the strange case of plastic being cheaper
Under the current EPR definitions, “paper” is packaging made from at least 95% fibre by weight. If a pack contains more than 5% non-fibre material, it’s automatically pushed into a new category called “fibre composites”. This might sound like a fair distinction, separating pure paper from mixed materials, but in practice, it’s a blunt instrument that fails to recognise how modern packaging really works.
Many paper-based packs include thin barrier coatings or functional layers for grease resistance, sealability, or moisture protection. These don’t necessarily make the pack “non-recyclable”. In fact, many can be fully repulped and recovered, yet they are treated as if they were plastic-lined cartons destined for landfill.
Aquapak’s analysis of the EPR guidance shows that plastic packaging often attracts a lower EPR fee than fibre composites. This means that the very material EPR was designed to discourage, plastic, is currently cheaper to put on the market than a paper-based pack containing a small amount of coating or barrier layer. In addition, the actual cost of recycling a fibre composite versus standard paper is almost identical. There may be a small increase in secondary waste from the mill pulping process, but it is negligible in the grand scheme of recycling operations. The infrastructure, energy input, and recovery steps remain largely the same.
So, the inflated cost applied to fibre composites under EPR is not reflective of the true recycling effort involved. In many cases, it unfairly penalises materials that perform almost identically to paper through the recycling process.
To make matters worse, some packaging that was previously accepted as “widely recycled” under earlier testing standards may now lose that status altogether. In other words, materials that have already proven they can be recycled in practice could suddenly be deemed “non-recyclable” simply because of how new definitions are written.
Mark Lapping, Chief Executive Officer, Aquapak, said: “It isn’t surprising that the EPR is proving so confusing, especially when the policy requires trawling through multiple documents, incomplete guidance, and “illustrative” fees that still aren’t finalised. Our analysis shows that the real risk is that EPR won’t actually deliver the shift away from non-recyclableplastics that it is intended to drive because it doesn’t recognise how modern packaging works.
“It’s time for science-based assessment, not arbitrary thresholds. Recyclability should be proven by performance testing and fibre recovery, not by a fixed percentage rule. Only then will we start to see the collaboration, clarity, and confidence needed for packaging innovation to thrive and for EPR to actually deliver on the promise it was designed for.”
To help reduce plastic packaging waste and prevent pollution, Aquapak, which specialises in developing high performance, environmentally safe materials that can do the job of conventional flexible plastics, and improve recycling efficiency, has developed Hydropol, a unique new polymer which is water soluble and non-toxic to marine life. Hydropol is dissolvable and biodegradable and breaks down harmlessly in all existing recycling streams. If it does escape into the environment, it biodegrades completely, leaving nothing behind (i.e. no harmful microplastics).
Hydropol can then be processed on existing packaging machinery at scale to produce a versatile barrier film layer that can be combined with paper and other bio-plastics or simply turned into strong, durable, puncture-resistant, anti-static bags.
