3 February 2026: It’s only February and already, as we predicted, it’s proving to be a significant year for UK packaging with the recent unveiling of the new name and identity for the UK Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Without doubt, UK packaging reforms are gaining momentum with the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) acting as a parallel drum beat of change for UK companies operating across Europe.
Here we share our view on what’s required this year to achieve fair, effective and data-driven circular economy policy outcomes.
📣 With the DMO established in the UK and Wales working to appoint its own, DRS interoperable systems for PET and aluminium are now critical to success. Systems for PET and aluminium drinks containers must align or risk failure. The choice is stark: interoperable or inoperable. Given the shared vision to increase recycling rates, boost the circular economy and reduce litter we are hopeful that common sense prevails.
📣 Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM) is a positive step and at MPMA we’re proud to advise the system going forward. In its current format, the system largely rewards linearity at the same value of circularity. It simply bolts recyclability onto the linear ‘make, take, use’ process although it does reward container re-use. But material re-use is a huge part of a bustling circular economy and we have fantastic examples of this in the UK with the beverage can recycled at 81% * and steel packaging recycled at 86.6%**. Both can be recycled over and over again without policy intervention.
📣 Circularity is all about “what happens next?”. This ability to be recycled at high quality over and over needs to be valued in the RAM – better rewarding true circularity by valuing materials like metal that recycle endlessly at high quality.
📣 We said it last year and we’ll continue to say it this year: the current pEPR weight-based fees risk unintended consequences. The base fees remain largely weight-based, valuing low weight over low amounts of packaging. This year we’ll continue to push for more accurate assessments of packaging disposal costs under this system and highlight any unintended impacts of the current set-up.
📣 Encouragingly, the government and its agents appear to be in active listening mode which we hope will start to repair some of the non-sensical impacts of pEPR.
📣 Against this backdrop, we urge brands and retailers to avoid knee-jerk material switches marketed as ‘innovation’ that compromise sustainability, food security and undermine circularity progress. Lightweight, less-recycled materials may look like innovation, but long-term impacts, including ETS charges for non-metals, tell a different story.
The UK packaging ecosystem is delicate, margins are thin and strong domestic supply chains are vital.
2026 is a pivotal step towards achieving genuine circularity but real progress depends on collaboration to ensure policy actively supports a circular economy and protects UK manufacturing.
* Every Can Counts 2024
**Gov.uk provisional 2024 figures/Packaging Waste Database and Reported Packaging Data