The UK government plans to remove glass drink containers supplied directly to pubs, restaurants and licensed hospitality venues from extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR) fees. Defra announced the exemption as a response to industry concerns that some hospitality businesses were effectively being charged twice for recycling obligations: once through commercial waste service costs and again through pEPR fees.
The change is expected to apply to fees calculated from April 2027 for glass containers sold directly by companies to hospitality groups. That timing matters. The pEPR regime began invoicing companies last year to cover the cost of managing recycling and treatment of packaging waste supplied to businesses and consumers. A review of fee structures was already under way when the government decided to address the glass and hospitality issue directly.
Scope is direct supply, not the whole glass chain
The exemption is limited to glass containers sold directly from companies to hospitality groups. It does not cover glass drinks supplied indirectly through wholesalers. Parts of the industry are expected to keep campaigning over how those indirect supplies are treated under pEPR. That leaves a practical boundary: a pub buying glass bottles directly from a producer may sit inside the exemption, while a venue sourcing the same type of container through a wholesaler may not.
The government presented the decision as a fairness measure while maintaining the principle that producers should pay towards packaging waste. Defra said pEPR must operate fairly and not disproportionately affect some industries and hospitality businesses. It also said producers should contribute to the cost of managing packaging waste and reducing it, noting that £1.4bn had already been provided to councils through the scheme to improve recycling services.
Fee modulation and consultations
Defra said businesses will also be consulted on the fees they pay for packaging waste, so that easy-to-recycle packaging such as glass and paper costs less and hard-to-recycle packaging such as some plastics costs more. The department said this could help reduce fees for the most recyclable packaging by up to 40% a year. That is a potential outcome of the consultation, not a confirmed rate for glass drink containers under the hospitality exemption.
Further engagement is planned. Defra said it would launch a call for evidence in December on mechanisms to support scaled-up commitments for reusing packaging as a way to curb waste and plastics use. A separate market engagement is scheduled for early next year, when the pEPR administrator PackUK will seek feedback on the fees placed on manufacturers for covering packaging waste treatment costs. The stated aim is to understand how to encourage more easy-to-recycle materials more effectively.
Glass market pressure and trade measures
The announcement also comes amid pressure on glass production and packaging. Two investigations have been launched by the independent Trade Remedies Authority into imported glass containers from China and Turkey. The government said that, following a Trade Remedies Authority recommendation, a provisional anti-dumping measure on Chinese imports was imposed on 9 September, and that both investigations remain ongoing.
Environment secretary Dame Angela Eagle said the decision responded to calls from the packaging and hospitality sectors about charges imposed on recyclable products. She said the government was committed to supporting British business and that the changes backed the glass industry and pubs while ensuring efforts to reduce waste continued.
Industry welcomes move but flags timing and gaps
British Glass welcomed the policy change but noted that the reforms would not take effect until the start of the third year of the pEPR regime, running from April 2027 to March 2028. Nick Kirk, the group’s executive director, said the government had listened to concerns from glass manufacturers and avoided appearing to penalise the use of glass for packaging. He said the proposed changes began to address some unintended consequences of pEPR and better recognised the environmental benefits of glass.
Kirk pointed to a planned update to the glass material value, a proposed acceleration of modulation factors and a commitment to review future fee structures as steps towards a fairer system. He also welcomed measures covering glass packaging supplied to hospitality, while saying the full impact of the proposed exemption still needed to be understood.
Andy Bagnall, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, called the announcement a “significant first step” towards ensuring drink containers used by hospitality were not double-charged. He said soft drinks businesses take responsibility for recycling packaging, and that a successful EPR scheme can increase recycling rates and reduce waste, but unfair cost allocation undermines its effectiveness. He said the association looked forward to working with Defra on a solution for indirect supply that builds on the ratio-based approach announced.
Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the direction on glass charges would be a relief to pubs. She said the measures could reduce cost pressures on Britain’s brewers by tens of millions, but argued that the 12,000 publicans running leased and tenanted pubs as SMEs must also be included. Otherwise, she said, more than a quarter of Britain’s pubs would not benefit equally.
The exemption therefore resolves one part of the pEPR cost debate while leaving others open: the treatment of wholesale supply, the final design of modulated fees, and the cumulative cost of packaging policies for hospitality businesses. The government’s next consultations and PackUK’s market engagement will determine how far the fairness argument extends beyond directly supplied glass.