Plastic Packaging Tax: One Year On

It’s been a year since we last spoke about the plastic packaging tax. The UK Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT) was a new tax that came into effect on 1 April 2022. It was designed to reduce the amount of plastic waste produced in the UK by encouraging businesses to use more recycled plastic in their packaging. This tax applies to all plastic packaging that is manufactured or imported into the UK and does not contain at least 30% recycled plastic. The tax rate was £200 per tonne of plastic packaging but as of April 1st 2023 it has increased to £210.82.

But one year on, what has the impact been? Let’s take a look!

What has been the economic impact of the Plastic Packaging Tax?

The economic impact of the tax has been quite considerable! Not every business was quick to adapt to the new changes and continued to use less sustainable packaging that equated to a considerable amount of payments. The amount of money raised now exceeds the government’s target. But it has not been without it’s detractors. At least one prominent company creating plastic pallets has objected to the current tax. They believe it is applied poorly and needs to be re-examined, though if HMRC does decide to act on that is something we don’t know yet. This has driven innovation across the market however. We have seen many paper based alternatives launched and we’ve taken the best of them to add to our range.

How has RAJA handled the new tax?

Here at RAJA, we have had to make very few changes. We were already focused on being as eco-conscious as possible in both our range and practices. For our bubble wrap and stretch categories we moved every product possible to 30% or more recycled and now the majority all meet this criteria with some close to 100% recycled. We also continued our work encouraging our customers over to paper based packaging solution. The difficulty of curb-side recycling for certain products (such as Bubble Wrap) inspired us to try and move existing customers over to our more eco focused ranges such as Paper Stretch and Paper Bubble Wrap. Moving customers to paper where possible helps them avoid the cost of the new tax.

What’s next?

The tax appears to have had quite an impact on the market. We’ve seen many businesses moving into more eco-conscious options, both for supply and consumption. With the increase just launched, it’s likely we’ll see continued innovation in the packaging space. Why not check out our eco range of products to see if we can help improve your own packaging operation!