Revision of the essential requirements for packaging
The European Commission is currently looking into options for revising the essential requirements for packaging in order to strengthen them and ensure better enforcement of these new rules.
Together with NGO partners from the Rethink Plastic alliance and beyond, ECOS has been involved in the process and regrets the strong focus on recycling in the proposed policy options. Re-usable packaging is broadly overlooked simply because the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive is not considered an “adequate tool” to introduce requirements for re-use.
We believe that, on the contrary, the revision is a real opportunity to ensure that deposit return schemes and refillables are mainstreamed. In fact, in several areas re-use is already well established and scalable. Examples include secondary and tertiary packaging (e.g. pallets and crates used for transporting goods), e-commerce with the reusable envelopes from Repack currently tested by Zalando, and the hospitality sector.
See also the Rethink Plastic report on reusable solutions for more promising developments.
