Essential Requirements - what you must do

Who must comply

Your business must comply with the Essential Requirements Regulations if you:

• produce packaged products
• design or specify packaging
• import packaged goods or filled packaging into the UK
• sell packaged goods or filled packaging
• place packaging or packaged goods on the market.

The regulations apply regardless of your business’ turnover and the quantities of packaging produced, handled or filled.

If your business handles more than 50 tonnes of packaging a year and has a turnover of more than £2 million, you will also need to comply with the Producer Responsibility Obligations.

Who enforces the Essential Requirements Regulations?

England, Scotland and Wales

In England, Scotland and Wales the Essential Requirements are enforced by the trading standards departments of local councils.

Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland the Essential Requirements are enforced by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.

What you must do

Under the Essential Requirements, you must:

• Minimise packaging weight and volume (subject to safety, hygiene and consumer acceptance).
• Make sure packaging can be recovered. Some or all of the packaging must be able to either be recycled, have energy recovered from it, or be composted or reused. See the packaging recovery methods below.

• Produce packaging that is reusable by increasing its durability.
• Make sure packaging has a minimal impact on the environment after disposal
• Make sure packaging is manufactured to contain minimum levels of hazardous substances.
• Make sure the amount of cadmium, mercury, lead and hexavalent chromium, or any combination of these heavy metals, does not exceed 100 parts per million (ppm) by weight. These limits apply to packaging plus any packaging components, calculated as a whole unit. For example components such as lids do not have to meet these limits independently.

Keep records

You must have evidence that your packaging complies with the Essential Requirements. You must keep evidence for at least four years from the date the packaging was first placed on the market.

How you hold this information is up to you. You may need to keep a variety of document types to ensure you have evidence for all of the requirements.

You could keep records of:

• existing technical documents on the design and use of your packaging
• existing quality assurance documents
• environmental management systems and auditing documents
• documents relating to other packaging standards.

If requested you must supply these records to your enforcing organisation within 28 days.

Your packaging must be able to be recovered by one of the following four methods:

Material recycling

Packaging must be manufactured so that a percentage (by weight) of the material can be recycled. The percentage varies according to the type of material and the current British standards. You can buy the current standards from the British Standards Institution.

Energy recovery

Packaging waste intended for energy recovery by incineration must be processed to allow for the maximum amount of energy to be recovered. This means that if you burn any packaging waste, it must produce more energy than is used by the incineration process.

Packaging should contain at least 50% combustible organic materials by weight. Combustible organic materials include paper, wood, cardboard and other organic fibres.

Composting

Packaging waste intended for composting must be biodegradable and not interfere with the collection of waste or the composting process itself. To be biodegradable the packaging must decompose into carbon dioxide, biomass and water.

Reusing packaging

Reusable packaging must be capable of being used several times. Once at the end of its useful life, it must also meet the requirements for recovery listed above.

In this guideline: