Reforming the UK packaging producer responsibility system: Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA)

1.0 Title of proposal: Reforming the UK packaging producer responsibility system

1. This is a partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for proposed secondary legislation which forms part of the introduction of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging.

2. This legislation is in the form of two Scottish Statutory Instruments which will require producers to collect and report data about packaging they place on the market in the course of 2023, and set civil penalties for non-compliance:

• The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 ("the data regulations");
• The Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2023 ("the enforcement order").

3. This document expands on the partial BRIA published in March 2021 alongside a public consultation;^[1] it is written subject to the most up-to-date information at the time. The Scottish Government is working jointly with the other UK administrations to introduce packaging EPR, and a UK Impact Assessment was published in March 2022 alongside the government response to the consultation;^[2] much of the information included in this partial BRIA is closely aligned with that Impact Assessment, hereafter referred to as the UK IA.

4. The main legislative vehicle for introducing packaging EPR will be a UK Statutory Instrument for which there will be notification to, and scrutiny by, the Scottish Parliament in advance of formal consent being granted by the Scottish Ministers to the making of the instrument by the Secretary of State. This process is intended to take place in autumn 2023, at which point a final BRIA will be published.