§ Mr. Bill O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the research which(a) has been and (b) will be undertaken to measure the effect of EU producer responsibility legislation on design of environmental targets in the UK. [157983]
§ Mr. MorleyProducer responsibility Directives include the Packaging, End of Life Vehicles (ELV), and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directives. The WEEE and ELV Directives contain provisions on product design that are expected to increase the recyclability of vehicles and electrical and electronic equipment when they are transposed later this year.
The Packaging Directive is implemented in England and Wales by (i) the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 (as amended) ("the packaging Regulations") and the parallel instruments in the devolved administrations; and (ii) the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2003. The Producer Responsibility Obligations provide incentives to minimise packaging as the amount of packaging waste producers have to recover and recycle is determined, in part, by the 1765W amount of packaging they handle. Therefore businesses can save money if they reduce the amount of packaging they handle.
The Government recently commissioned a study on the impact of the Essential Requirements Regulations, which can be viewed at: www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/packagingfinalreport.pdf. The report highlights a number of instances where packaging has been minimised as a result of the Essential Requirements Regulations. For example one large retailer has reduced the weight of plastic packaging on a range of cosmetic products saving around 30 tonnes of plastic per year.