About 40% of all plastics and 50% of all paper used in the EU are destined for the production of very short-lived packaging materials. Hence, it may not be surprising that more than a third of all the municipal waste produced in the EU is packaging waste. Unfortunately, a substantial fraction of these discarded packaging materials do not make it back to the economy, with e.g. less than half of the plastic packaging being recycled. This results in a rapid, continuous and large leak of valuable resources from the EU economy. The 2025 Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation aims to address this key problem. It requires that all packaging is designed to be recyclable, or risks being banned from the market from 2030 onwards. It does so by formulating a number of principles around which design-for-recycling criteria for packaging need to be developed. In addition, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation lists a number of key principles that should form the basis of a methodology to determine whether recycled plastics destined for new packaging have been recycled in a sustainable way. ©Adobe Stock_Ernest What the JRC is doing JRC is now working to transform these legal principles into proposals for concrete and detailed technical requirements bydeveloping the technical framework for assessing the recyclability of packaging, with the help of the European standardisation organization CEN/CENELECelaborating minimum sustainability requirements for using recycled plastics in new packaging, based on a life cycle assessment of recycling technologies for plastics The JRC is working in close collaboration with the Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) and the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). The technical proposals to be published by the JRC will be used as a basis for the Delegated and Implementing Acts under Articles 6 and 7 of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
About 40% of all plastics and 50% of all paper used in the EU are destined for the production of very short-lived packaging materials. Hence, it may not be surprising that more than a third of all the municipal waste produced in the EU is packaging waste. Unfortunately, a substantial fraction of these discarded packaging materials do not make it back to the economy, with e.g. less than half of the plastic packaging being recycled. This results in a rapid, continuous and large leak of valuable resources from the EU economy. The 2025 Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation aims to address this key problem. It requires that all packaging is designed to be recyclable, or risks being banned from the market from 2030 onwards. It does so by formulating a number of principles around which design-for-recycling criteria for packaging need to be developed. In addition, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation lists a number of key principles that should form the basis of a methodology to determine whether recycled plastics destined for new packaging have been recycled in a sustainable way. ©Adobe Stock_Ernest
