20 Jun 2022 --- UK food packaging businesses are being forced to pay a plastic packaging tax they cannot comply with while the financial penalties ensued could force companies to push additional costs onto consumers, warns Wayne Hallsworth, sales manager at Wipak. Speaking at the recent Packaging Innovations 2022 trade fair in Birmingham, UK, Hallsworth told PackagingInsights that the UK Plastic Packaging Tax is unrealistic because food-grade recyclate is not sufficiently available anywhere in the world. Therefore, businesses are choosing to pay the tax and pushing price increases onto consumers.“We have decided, as a lot of our competitors have, that the plastic tax needs to be passed along the chain to the end-user – the consumer. With all of the other challenges we’re facing today, it’s another challenge for our customers that they could do without,” says Hallsworth.
