Glasgow City Council paid £19m by businesses paying for packaging waste disposal

Glasgow City Council has been paid £19m by businesses who now must shoulder the cost of handling packaging waste for the first time.

New legislation means firms who sell products with packaging now have to pay for the collection, recycling and disposal of the waste.

The scheme – called the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was rolled out last year.

A council paper said: “This is complex legislation which will see the cost of managing packaging waste, including the collection, recycling and disposal, across all packaging material types, move from local authorities to the producers of packaging waste.

“A series of local and national parameters has been used to calculate the payment due to each UK local authority and in December 2025, all UK local authorities received their first payments under the new EPR payment mechanism.”

The paper said going forward councils will have to carry out an ‘effective and efficient’ collection service to ensure future payments are received and submit annual data to the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

As the largest local authority in Scotland, the £19.544m received by Glasgow was the highest amount in the nation.

The information is due to be presented to next week’s environment and liveable neighbourhoods city policy committee.

Councillors will receive an update on the council’s resource and recycling strategy.