63 www.printmonthly.co.uk Issue 360 - May | June 2026 financial obligation on producers, with fees expected to generate over £1bn annually to fund local collection and recycling infrastructure. Combined with DEFRA's Simpler Recycling standardisation initiative, the UK market is now demanding a fundamental rethink of packaging design, material choice, and recyclability claims. At Packaging Innovations & Empack 2026, EPR was the topic on everyone's lips. Attendees pressed PackUK for clarity on fees, reporting structures, and timelines. Businesses are hungry for guidance, transparency, and practical solutions. Yet for all the anxiety, there are real commercial opportunities embedded within the EPR framework, for those willing to see them. As EPR shifts cost and accountability onto producers, it creates strong commercial incentives to move away from hard-to-recycle materials, invest in recyclability, and differentiate through genuine sustainability performance. As Eco Flexibles, a sustainability-focused and flexible packaging specialist, puts it: "EPR and RAM have fundamentally changed the conversation we have with brand owners. "Paper-based packaging materials have come very far, very quickly. What's changed is the sophistication of what's being asked of it, as brands need paper and board solutions that can perform across the full lifecycle, not just look good on the shelf. “That means working much earlier in the design process, bringing material knowledge to the table before a spec is fixed, and being honest about what fibre can and can't do in any given application. The businesses we work with who are getting this right are treating material choice as a strategic decision, not a procurement one. When you do that, you often find that the more sustainable option is also the better-performing one." EPR: Challenge, Catalyst, and Commercial Opportunity Of all the regulatory forces reshaping packaging in 2026, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) generates the most heat, and perhaps the most uncertainty. The UK's producer EPR scheme, administered by PackUK, places a significant The fee structure makes it very clear, very quickly, that the packaging decisions made today have a direct impact on cost tomorrow.” Talking about industry responses to regulations like EPR, Simon Buswell, sales and marketing director at Eco Flexibles, explains: “What we're finding is that brands who come to us having already done that calculation are much further forward. They're not asking 'should we switch to recyclable formats?' They're asking 'how quickly can we get there?' “The businesses that will feel the squeeze most are those still running mixed-material structures and hoping the cost can be absorbed or passed on. In this price-sensitive market, neither of those options are as viable as they once were.” At the European level, the PPWR sets an ambitious trajectory: reducing packaging waste by 5% by 2030, 10% by 2035, and 15% by 2040. For businesses operating across the EU or exporting into it from the UK, compliance is no longer optional. The transition period ends in August 2026, at which point PPWR applies uniformly and without discretion. There is also a broader business case that too many companies are missing. The The UK's EPR scheme is expected to generate over £1bn annually to fund local recycling infrastructure Factoid Digital printing's viability for packaging has reached a major tipping point ▲ Packaging Innovations attracted over 8,000 unique visitors in 2026 ▲ Jan De Roeck, director of marketing at Esko PACKAGING OPPORTUNITIES | JAMES COLDMAN
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