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 Techtextil Texprocess
- 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. Techtextil Texprocess
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.