Eco-contributions: significant increases on 1 July 2024
Significant rise in EPR eco-contributions in France from 1 July 2024.
The main reasons for these increases are as follows:
- Stricter environmental regulations:
The AGEC law in France imposes stricter criteria on recyclability, reuse and waste reduction. These new obligations require additional investment and improvements in waste treatment processes.
- Rising treatment and recycling costs:
Waste treatment is becoming increasingly costly due to the growing complexity of products and the need for advanced recycling technologies.
- Infrastructure investments:
To meet growing recycling and waste treatment requirements, producer responsibility organisations (PROs) or their partners must invest in new infrastructure and technologies, which increases operating costs.
- Rising collection costs
Collection costs are rising due to higher energy, fuel and labour prices. In addition, collection logistics often need to be improved to better separate and sort waste.
- Fluctuations in recycled material markets:
Prices of recycled materials, such as paper, plastic and metals, can fluctuate on the global market. A drop in prices can reduce PROs' revenue, requiring higher contributions to compensate.
- Quality and quantity of collected waste:
The quality of collected recyclable materials can decline, making sorting and recycling more costly. In addition, volume drops in certain schemes, such as paper, increase unit costs.
- Awareness and education:
Public awareness and education campaigns on sorting and recycling also represent additional costs for producer responsibility organisations.
These combined factors explain the rise in eco-contributions, which are needed to fund improvements and meet new environmental requirements.
The rate of increase varies by scheme and producer responsibility organisation (PRO).
Not all PROs applied increases in 2024. Some did so in 2023 and are keeping their rates in 2024, others will pass on these increases later in the year or in 2025.
A few examples:
- The Construction scheme raised its rates by an average of 25% in 2024
- The Textiles, Household Linen and Footwear scheme increased eco-contributions by an average of 20% in 2023, and these rates are still in effect in 2024.
- The Electrical and Electronic Equipment scheme saw record increases on certain products such as smartphones, for which an eco-contribution rose from €0.02 per unit to €1.67 in 2024, an increase of more than 8300%.
CompliancR helps you avoid being caught off guard at your next placing on the market declaration.
We have anticipated these increases in our algorithms, and our application will be able to distinguish between products placed on the French market before and after the increase date, so you pay the correct price.
In addition, displaying the eco-contribution amount at the point of sale is MANDATORY for the EEE (Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and Furniture schemes. Our platform will show you the eco-contribution amount to display for each of your products from 1 July.
This way you can pass the increase on to your prices without affecting your commercial margin!
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