The latest draft of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) – which passed its plenary vote in the EU Parliament on Wednesday 22 November – brings further sweeping changes to the proposed legislation, some of which are likely to prove controversial. The wide-ranging changes from the initial draft, many of which are in line with the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment (ENVI)’s proposed amendments from October, include:
- A watering down of minimum recycled content and collection targets at member state and company level
- The acceptance of bio-based material as potentially counting towards 50% recycled content targets
- Exemptions for linings in recycled content targets and recyclability assessments, which could encourage the use of difficult-to-recycle paper and cardboard food-contact packaging
- Exemptions from recyclability assessments for wood and wax packaging
- Bans on the intentional addition of bisphenol A (BPA) and per-and-polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) in packaging
- Labelling obligations and data provision obligations – including making information publicly available
- An extension of Extended Producer Responsibility obligations, which would include member states using fees collected to support collection infrastructure and make producers/distributors responsible for covering recycling fees
- A push towards "regulated value chains"
- Further amendments to the definition of recycling, tying the PPWR to directive 2008/98/EC, as well as the legislation’s own definition of recycling
- Amendments to mandated Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) proposals
- Changes to reuse and refill targets, including adding requirements that it must be reusable "multiple times" to the reuse definition
- Including online retailers into many of the PPWR obligations
- The setting up of a "Packaging Forum" made up of value chain stakeholders to vet future legislation and targets
The legislation still needs to go through the trilogue stage, where recommendations from the EU Council and other stakeholders will be debated, before it is adopted, and the final version could look quite different from the version voted on by the Plenary. At a minimum it is likely to provoke heated discussion and lobbying from all sides of the various packaging value chains.
Recycled content targets
What will most likely prove one of the most hotly-debated changes under the latest version of the PPWR is the incorporation of ENVI’s proposed amendment on the acceptance of bio-based plastics as counting towards up to 50% of mandated recycled content targets in packaging. This was something that was heavily criticised by many in the mechanical recycling and packaging chains, when it was adopted by ENVI under their proposed changes. This is not because the industry doesn’t support the development of the bio-based plastic chain, but because the acceptance of bio-based as recycled content could potentially harm investment in and development of the mechanical recycling chain.
Many players have stated that there should potentially be bio-based content targets, but that these should be separate from the recycled content targets. Coupled with this, many do not view bio-based as a form of recycling – although it reuses biological waste – but as a form of virgin production.
On those targets the minimum recycled content target for contact-sensitive plastic packaging has been reduced to 7.5%, from 10% by 2030, and food-contact material appears to have been granted an exemption from having to meet those targets. It also adds a 25% recycled content target for non-polyethylene terephthalate (PET) contact sensitive packaging. It also reduces member state packaging collection targets down from 90% in the previous draft, to 85%.
Taken together, these changes amount to a significant dilution of the previous targets. Nevertheless, they remain ambitious, and would require a significant scale-up in packaging suitable recycled content production and collection, particularly in markets such as recycled polyolefins, given current structural shortages in Europe. Likely to be more warmly received by the industry, the latest version shifts the calculation of recycled content from a per packaging basis, to an average per format, per manufacturing plant, and per year, which would make the regulation more practical to enforce.
The new version also deletes the clause in the draft version that would have allowed the Commission to amend the recycled content targets due to the lack of availability or "excessive prices" of specific recycled plastics. It would require the Commission to develop a methodology by 31 December 2025 to certify recycled content placed on the market.
Lining exemptions and paper and cardboard packaging
The other area of the new draft likely to cause controversy in the market is the addition of exemptions for linings, coatings, varnishes, paints, inks adhesives, lacquers, and closures from definitions of "composite packaging". This would appear to remove them from key ‘recyclability at scale’ assessments, and from recycled content targets. Of these, it is the lining exemptions likely to cause the fiercest debate.
