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Everything you need to know about UK's plastic tax

As the time approaches for the UK’s plastic tax to be introduced, it is important that businesses responsible for manufacturing or importing plastic products in the UK start thinking about the potential impact that this widely anticipated legislation may have on their operations.

What is plastic tax and when will it be introduced?

Officially known as plastic packaging tax (PPT), this relates to any business that produces or imports more than 10 tonnes of plastic packaging into the UK over a 12-month period, which doesn’t contain at least 30% recycled plastic.

This refers to filled or unfilled plastic packaging, which is predominantly plastic by weight, and must have undergone the last modifications of production (such as moulding or forming).

If this applies to your business, then the rate of chargeable plastic tax you need to pay will be £200 per tonne of plastic.

Originally set out in the Government’s 2018 budget, the UK’s plastic tax will officially come into force on 1 April 2022 - on the heels of the European Union, where the tax takes effect slightly earlier, on 1 January 2022.

Exemptions to UK’s plastic tax

There will be a few exemptions to paying this plastic tax for producers and importers of small amounts of plastic packaging, which will adjust the tax liability for smaller and less profitable businesses.

Businesses will also not be eligible to pay the tax if plastic is not the primary aim of the product. In other words, if you are a producer or importer of plastic - for example, headphone cases or first aid boxes, and where plastic packaging forms the essential part of the product to be used, such as with asthma inhalers - then you will not have to pay the UK’s plastic tax. Other exemptions include shop fittings, such as sales displays and shelves.

Who is responsible within your business for paying the tax?

Technically, tax and finance personnel within your company will be responsible for calculating and completing the plastic tax payment. However, in the last couple of years, it has been considered that key business heads need to take a more proactive role within this area, such as quality and procurement functions. This is to ensure businesses don’t take too much of a financial hit from this tax, by sourcing good quality plastic that contains more recyclable material instead.

Reasons for plastic tax

Plastic was widely used in the UK following the end of the Second World War, and again became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The points that made it so beneficial at the time, including being strong, durable, and cheap to make, are now the reasons we are moving away from using this material other than in a more recyclable format.

It's well-known for its inability to break down in our country’s landfills, and with at least 11 million metric tonnes of plastic ending up in our world’s oceans, the risk to the health and survival of marine life has become increasingly apparent, as has the world’s inability to deal with climate change.

How Measom Freer are helping

Here are Measom Freer, we are committed to manufacturing plastic products with recyclable thermoplastic and where we can, we add the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc (SPI) recycling codes so customers can identify material used.

This enables our customers to recycle products in correct recycling areas of local councils, other recycling areas or collection schemes.

See a list of our codes with the products we manufacture listed.

We significantly contribute to reducing plastic waste by using closed loop recycling within our manufacturing process including typically 10% regrind within production made up of tops and tails – from extrusion blow moulding processes for bottles, and sprues and runners – from the injection moulding process.

Benefits to the plastic tax

There are some real benefits to introducing the UK’s plastic tax, including encouraging the greater use of recycled plastic, which in turn creates greater demand for the product. This also results in increased levels of recycling and collection of plastic waste, which is then diverted away from landfill or incineration.

At Measom Freer, we are dedicated to reducing our carbon footprint by improving the process of making injection moulded and blow moulded products, using our new, high-tech moulding machinery.

We also use 100% recyclable plastic and manufacture from PCR Recycled Plastic where available and any leftover materials are re-ground and used again.

What’s next?

As a hot topic at the recent COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow, it was revealed that the newly established Global Plastics Policy Centre at the University of Portsmouth has been set up to provide governments and industry groups with evidence that can back up policy decisions for reducing the negative impacts of plastic.

The topic of plastic is set to rumble on for the foreseeable future, but as of now, there are no further updates on the UK’s plastic tax implementation next April.

Our commitment

And at Measom Freer, our commitment will continue by: