R86.64 a tonne. That's the extended producer responsibility, EPR, fee every glass packaging producer in South Africa already pays, set by The Glass Recycling Company, TGRC, the industry's producer responsibility organisation.

It funds a network of 4,017 glass banks nationally, and more than 80 member companies support the value chain behind them: waste pickers and collectors who recover the material, buy-back centres that aggregate it, processors who prepare cullet for remanufacture, and manufacturers who turn it into new packaging.

That's already a multi-tier physical supply chain, moving broken glass from a household bin to a furnace. What changes in 2026 is the pressure on it.

The draft strategy adds a deposit return scheme

South Africa's draft National Waste Management Strategy, published 26 February 2026, proposes a Deposit Return Scheme, DRS, for any EPR packaging stream that misses its collection and recycling targets. The minister's stated aim is accountability: a DRS incentivises higher collection rates by attaching a refundable value to every unit, the way bottle deposit schemes already work across much of Europe.

Glass is one of the packaging categories the EPR framework already covers. If collection targets under the current scheme aren't met, glass is a candidate for DRS treatment.

A DRS creates a reverse logistics obligation. Every deposit-bearing unit a retailer sells has to have a route back, through the same store, a dedicated return point, or a collection partner, with the volume tracked, sorted and settled.

Why melting cullet is worth the collection cost

Glass is 100% recyclable with no loss of quality, unlike most plastics. Melting cullet, crushed recycled glass, takes less heat than melting virgin silica, soda ash and limestone, which is where the energy and carbon case for collection comes from.

The fee of R86.64 a tonnene lands on producers regardless of how efficiently the collection network actually runs in their region. A better-run reverse chain is the only lever that brings that cost down over time.

Where this becomes a warehouse and DC problem

If a DRS lands on glass, the operational shape of the problem is familiar to anyone who has built a returns process. It looks like the reverse flow of e-commerce returns or a beverage crate deposit scheme: inbound volume through the front of the store or DC, a sort and grade step, and a settlement record for every unit, all landing on space and labour nobody budgeted for.

None of this is legislated yet. The strategy is a draft. But the EPR fee is not new, and the direction of travel, from a flat per-tonne levy to a deposit-tracked reverse flow, is the same one plastics and e-waste have already been pushed down.

We model reverse logistics and returns flow the same way we model forward picking and slotting: from your own data, on top of the systems you already run. If your business touches glass packaging, retail, distribution or manufacture, it's worth knowing what a DRS-shaped reverse flow would cost you in DC space before it's mandated rather than after.

Ship less air in every carton

Pulse picks the right box for each order at the pack station. Send us a week of orders and your carton list, and we'll show the fill rate you would get.

Book a cartonization review Watch the Voltex case

Sources