Producer responsibility hits licensed premises in Britain

A legal ruling in England over the sharing of packaging waste recycling targets will mean that major pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels will now be obliged to recycle their bottles.





Under the Packaging Regulations, which are designed to encourage reduction and recycling of packaging waste throughout the supply chain, the legal obligation to recycle beer, soft drink and mixer bottles supplied to licensed premises for consumption on site has – up to now – extended only as far as those supplying pubs and other hospitality premises. This has now changed with a ruling that premises serving drinks in or from bottles are ‘sellers’ rather than ‘end users’ of packaging, and hence obliged to recycle – 48 per cent in the case of glass bottles.





Brewers will still be subject to the Regulations but, will be now only considered as ‘packers/fillers’ when supplying bottled drinks to pubs and other ‘sellers’. Their obligation to recycle will be reduced to 37 per cent. The impact of the change is also likely to extend to other types of packaging, with hotels, for example, being considered ‘sellers’ of packaging associated with bath and toiletry products provided for guests, and restaurants, cafés and other premised serving food being ‘sellers’ where they provide customers with milk, sauce and other catering portion packs.