Newsletter FEFPEB January 2024

1. UPDATE PACKAGING AND PACKAGING WASTE REGULATION (PPWR)

Council General Approach on PPWR adopted on 18.12.2023

The Council has adopted its General Approach on the proposed Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) on the 18th of December 2023. Please find the adopted document in the link here and the associated press release here.

Next steps: The General Approach will serve as the Council’s mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament on the final shape of the legislation (the so-called ‘trilogue’). The outcome of the negotiations will have to be formally adopted by the Council and Parliament.

Positive outcomes reflected in the Council’s General Approach

When defining ‘recyclability’ and ‘high-quality recycling’, the Member States have adopted a material loop approach, as opposed to a closed product loop:
- Art. 3.1, (31.a): “‘recyclability’ means the gradual suitability of any given packaging that is designed for recycling and leads to, after being recycled at scale, sufficient quality compared to the original material to substitute primary raw material.”
- Art. 3.1, (32.b): “’High-quality recycling’ means any recycling process which produces recycled materials that are of equivalent quality to the original materials, based on preserved technical characteristics, and can be is used as a substitute to primary raw materials for packaging or other applications where the quality of the recycled material is retained.”
When it comes to the reuse targets for transportation packaging, an exemption is envisaged for the transportation of “dangerous goods as set by Directive 2008/68/EC and for large-scale machinery and equipment that are produced to fit the individual requirements of the ordering economic operator” (Art. 26.7, Art. 26.12, and Art. 26.13).
Exemption from recyclability obligations for “sales packaging made from lightweight wood” (Art. 6.10, (cc)). However, EPR contributions for this packaging will still be modulated according to recyclability performance grades
Removal of ban on single use packaging for packaging for less than 1.5 kg pre-packed fresh fruit and vegetables. The rewording of Annex V, point 2 now refers only to “Single use plastic packaging for unprocessed fresh fruit and vegetables”.
Obligations Related to Excessive Packaging: The maximum empty space ratio has been set at 50%. The methodology to calculate the empty space ratio shall take into account “the special characteristics of packaging which needs to be placed in an empty space large enough to comply with applicable legal requirements or to protect the product, in particular concerning packaged products of irregular shapes, packaging containing more than one sales packaging or product, packaging containing liquid products, packaged products the content of which can easily be damaged, packaged products that can be damaged by larger products due to their small dimensions, and the minimum space on the transport packaging to enable attachment of the shipment labels”
Ownership Protection of Reusable Assets: This was not included in the Council General Approach.

The FEFPEB Task Force PPWR, with the support of Denton Global Advisors, are currently making an analysis of the differences on the key topics between EP, EC and Council.

Conclusions next week and then the FEFPEB position statement PPWR will be updated for communication to the EU instititutions.