The PPWR entered into force on 11 February 2025 and its general date of application is 18 months after that. After over two years of negotiations, the highly expected Regulation is now official, but further work remains to clarify key aspects of the text through secondary legislation.
The Regulation updates the previous packaging rules, introducing stricter rules to promote the reduction, reuse, and recycling of packaging across all Member States. This new Regulation also creates new opportunities for harmonisation of packaging rules – which represents today a key barrier for cross-border commerce – though some flexibility remains.
The new rules also aim to adapt packaging rules to the objective of the Circular Economy and align with the waste hierarchy by minimising the quantities of packaging and waste generated and lowering the use of primary raw materials. This is notably reflected in new sustainability requirements for all packaging placed on the EU market (substance in packaging, recyclability, recycled content, composability…).
Specifically for e-commerce, some important changes will apply as of 2030 with a limit on the maximum empty space ratio of 50% between the sales packaging and the e-commerce packaging used to ship the product. This obligation will apply to all operators who fill grouped packaging, transport packaging or e-commerce packaging. The rules will be further specified by the European Commission in the coming months. The text also introduces a new range of reuse and refill obligations for economic operators, including a number of reuse targets for all types of packaging as of 2030.
Some changes are also expected in relation to Extended Producer Responsibility. Producers will have Extended Producer Responsibility for the packaging or packaged product that they make available for the first time on the market of a Member State, and will have to register with new national EPR registries to comply with these obligations.