Calculating Your Obligation

Your company’s obligation is based on the packaging waste you handle and is divided into four activities.

Envirovert can help you to identify what activities you carry out and work out your obligation for you.

The four packaging activities are:

• Manufacturing – Producing raw materials for the manufacture of packaging
• Conversion – Converting raw materials into packaging
• Packing/Filling – Putting goods into packaging or packaging around goods
• Selling – Passing on packaging to an end user

There are recycling targets for each material. The materials must be recorded and reported within the following categories:

• Paper and Card – such as boxes, cartons and labels
• Glass – such as bottles
• Aluminium – such as cans or foil trays
• Steel – such as drums and bottle lids
• Plastic – such as containers and carrier bags
• Wood – such as wooden pallets and crates
• Other – This includes all other materials that do not fit into the above categories above.

These four activities account for 100% of the responsibility of all packaging waste within the UK. The responsibility is shared between each activity as follows:

• Manufacturing – 6%
• Conversion – 9%
• Packing/filling – 37%
• Selling – 48%

This means that all packaging waste placed into the waste stream in the UK is accounted for at each stage of the supply chain.

The UK government sets the packaging recycling and recovery targets for each year.

The table below shows the current UK government recycling targets in percentages: