• 1 Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris)
• 2 Centre d'économie industrielle i3

The United Kingdom has opted for a very original solution to implement the EU packaging waste directives. In comparison with continental schemes, the British system is very decentralised. In particular, individual packaging users fulfil their recycling obligations by buying packaging recovery notes (PRN) on a market.This paper describes the UK scheme and seeks to assess its economic efficiency. The assessment is carried out in a comparative way, taking the French system as a reference. Our results are contrasted. On the negative side, the UK PRN system suffers from high administrative costs due to its complexity. In addition, PRN prices appear to be very volatile, thereby hindering the devising of long-term waste prevention strategies by packaging users and producers. The fact that municipalities are also constrained by recycling objectives introduces distortions that increase aggregate packaging recycling costs. On the positive side, the British system assigns the main responsibility onto retailers — as compared to pack fillers in France. Economic analysis suggests that this choice is relevant given that this level of the packaging chain enjoys market power vis-à-vis upstream producers.