Environmental Packaging Summit 2025 live: Biffa on UK policy and waste management innovation

At the ongoing Environmental Packaging Summit in London, UK, waste management company Biffa spotlights how it helps organizations manage costs, reduce waste, increase recycling, and transform waste into valuable resources.

Event speaker Roger Wright, waste strategy and packaging manager at Biffa, tells Packaging Insights that: “The most common challenges when dealing with packaging waste come from controlling the cost of procurement, positively impacting behaviors, and ultimately creating more value from the disposed of materials.”

Biffa assists in addressing these challenges through a process of “mitigation, innovation, and education.”

“We proactively work to protect businesses from the rising cost of legislative compliance to minimize its financial impact. We delve into every possible alternative format, material, or system to find the most suitable solutions to align with their needs,” says Wright.

“A heavily regulated industry”

Biffa is well positioned to “react and adapt at pace” to the “fluctuating” policy landscape in the UK, including the “wide-ranging changes we’ve seen happen over the past 18 months.” Wright emphasizes that waste management is already a highly regulated industry in the country.

Biffa's facilities are preparing for the mandatory household collections from next year.“We have successfully mobilized thousands of trade waste customers for the new Simpler Recycling regulations. Our sorting and processing facilities are readying for the mandatory collection of materials from households next year and into 2027, and there’s a team of internal packaging compliance specialists and technologists supporting customers through the complexities of Packaging Recovery Note and packaging EPR (pEPR) obligations.”

“We have invested heavily across our operations ahead of time to future-proof our infrastructure as things progress.”

Policy changes are driving a wave of design and innovation in packaging, pushing producers to rethink materials and formats to align with collection and recycling mandates, Wright says.

“For instance, while aseptic cartons and flexible films are now required to be collected, the current infrastructure isn’t equipped at scale to handle them — presenting an urgent challenge to develop end-to-end solutions for their recycling.”

Tech and AI 

Beyond the wave of design and packaging innovations sparked by UK regulations, Wright points to AI, energy-from-waste (EfW), and Carbon Capture Technologies (CCT) as key developments for the industry. 

Amy Hooper, head of innovation at Biffa and a speaker at the Environmental Packaging Summit 2025, also shares her insights in this interview alongside Lucy Kemp, group public affairs and engagement manager at Biffa.

“The use of AI in sortation has the potential to transform our sector. AI presents exciting opportunities to sort and segregate valuable material and remove contamination more efficiently, in some cases while improving health and safety.” 

This month, Biffa installed Polytag’s detection technology at its Edmonton Materials Recovery Facility in North London.

“Additionally, because there will still remain a requirement for EfW for many years, energy recovery enhancements through CCT present a great opportunity to make EfW more sustainable,” says Biffa.

AI in sortation has the potential to transform the sector, according to Wright.Biffa collaborates with packaging partners and manufacturers to design for recyclability or reuse from the outset. The company spokespersons say that these are key considerations for Biffa in meeting customers’ local and global sustainability ambitions.

“As packaging producers prepare for the rollout of pEPR modulated fees, Biffa aims to support them in understanding the policy, anticipating its impact, and designing packaging that reduces costs wherever possible.”

Real change at scale

Biffa continuously tests and trials alternative formats, materials, and technology solutions. “We are able to offer anyone in the supply chain access to our inhouse, independent, and material agnostic packaging consultancy services,” explains Wright.

“Within waste management, we often deal with the outflow of the good, bad, or indifferent materials being placed upon the market and are delighted to be able to contribute to recognizing environmental excellence within the packaging sector.”

Wright says that the Environmental Packaging Summit 2025 is “a timely reminder that real change can be delivered at scale if we reward solutions that work within a true circular economy for packaging.” 

“Concepts that adopt the most sustainable incoming materials, that are used or reused within the system and that also address what happens at the end of life, will get the recognition they deserve and hopefully inspire others to do the same.”

Benchmark Consulting, which offers a CO2 estimation and quotation software solution for the packaging industry, the Food Service Packaging Association, and the UK’s recycling label authority OPRL, also attended the summit.