We're urging the Chancellor Rt Hon Rachel Reeves to either rethink EPR calculations – or the whole scheme.
Here are Belu Co-CEOs Natalie Campbell and Charlotte Harrington to explain exactly why we're fired up about it.
Dear Chancellor Rt Hon Rachel Reeves,
The government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme is set to add £739,000 to our cost of goods. If we were under the same scheme in Germany, it would cost £92,000.
This isn’t just disproportionate—it’s damaging.
EPR was designed to tackle household waste, yet B2B hospitality suppliers like Belu have been swept into the scope without proper consultation. We’re raising the alarm because:
– The fees are unjustified for businesses using highly recyclable and reusable packaging like glass.
– The money raised won’t be ring-fenced for better circular and recycling infrastructure.
– Small businesses have been excluded from the conversation.
– Complex, overlapping schemes (EPR, DRS, PRN) are creating chaos—not clarity.
We’ve been lobbying for months and we will not stop.
The system must change—because if this goes ahead as planned, businesses like ours will be forced to ask: what’s the point?
The reason our message is focused on you, the Chancellor, and not Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is simple: sustainable growth.
Today, you outlined a series of measures to boost growth, including cutting red tape. If you are serious, then No.11 needs to take a systems approach to the real issues facing the largest population of where sustainable growth will come from—small, entrepreneurial businesses.
This scheme doesn’t enable growth. It limits it.
It doesn’t support entrepreneurial ambition. It inhibits it.
And it directly affects inflation, GDP, and productivity.
Sincerely,
Charlotte Harrington & Natalie Campbell MBE MIH
Co-CEOs, Belu
Join the conversation. Follow Belu on LinkedIn or email the Chancellor with your views at: [email protected]
