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(1) Products need appropriate packaging in order to be protected and easy to transport from where they are produced to where they are used or consumed. Prevention of barriers on the internal market for packaging is key for the functioning of the internal market for products. Fragmented rules and vague requirements cause uncertainty and additional cost to economic operators.

(2) The Commission’s (Eurostat’s) packaging waste statistics for the period 2010-2021 indicate that packaging uses large quantities of primary raw material (virgin materials). 40 % of plastics and 50 % of paper used in the Union is used for packaging, and packaging represents 36 % of municipal solid waste. High and constantly increasing quantities of packaging generated, as well as low levels of re-use and collection and poor recycling, present significant barriers to achieving a low-carbon circular economy. This Regulation should therefore establish rules covering the entire life-cycle of packaging, contributing to the efficient functioning of the internal market by harmonising national measures, while preventing and reducing the adverse impacts of packaging and packaging waste on the environment and human health. By laying down measures in line with the waste hierarchy set out in Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘waste hierarchy’), this Regulation should contribute to the transition to a circular economy.

(3) European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC lays down requirements for packaging, which relate to the composition of packaging and its reusable and recoverable nature (‘essential requirements for packaging’), and sets recovery and recycling targets for Member States.

(4) In 2014, in its Fitness check relating to Directive 94/62/EC, the Commission recommended adaptations to the essential requirements for packaging, which were seen as a key tool to achieve better environmental performance of packaging, to make those requirements more concrete and more easily enforceable and to strengthen them.

(5) In line with the European Green Deal, set out in the communication of the Commission of 11 December 2019, the new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe (CEAP), set out in the communication of the Commission of 11 March 2020, commits to reinforcing the essential requirements for packaging with a view to making all packaging reusable or recyclable by 2030, and to considering other measures to reduce (over)packaging and packaging waste, drive design for re-use and recyclability of packaging, reduce the complexity of packaging materials and introduce requirements for recycled content in plastic packaging. The CEAP also highlights the need to reduce food waste. The Commission commits to assess the feasibility of Union-wide labelling that facilitates the correct separation of packaging waste at source.

(6) Plastic is the most carbon-intensive packaging material and, in terms of fossil fuel use, recycling of plastic waste is approximately five-times better than incineration with energy recovery. As stated in the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, set out in the communication of the Commission of 16 January 2018, the CEAP commits to increase uptake of recycled plastics and contribute to the more sustainable use of plastics. The Union budget and the system of own resources contribute to reducing pollution from plastic packaging waste. From 1 January 2021, Council Decision (EU, Euratom) 2020/2053 introduced a national contribution that is proportional to the quantity of plastic packaging waste that is not recycled in each Member State. That own resource forms part of the incentives to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics, foster recycling and boost the circular economy.

(7) The Council, in its conclusions on ‘Making the Recovery Circular and Green’ adopted on 11 December 2020, underlined that the revision of Directive 94/62/EC should update and establish more concrete, effective and easy-to-implement provisions in order to foster sustainable packaging in the internal market and to minimise the complexity of packaging, in order to foster economically feasible solutions, to improve the reusability and recyclability of packaging, as well as to minimise substances of concern in packaging materials, especially in food packaging materials. The Council also stressed that the revision of Directive 94/62/EC should also provide for labelling of packaging in an easily understandable way to inform consumers about the recyclability of packaging and where packaging waste should be discarded to facilitate recycling.

(8) The European Parliament’s resolution of 10 February 2021 on the New Circular Economy Action Plan reiterated the objective of making all packaging reusable or recyclable in an economically viable way by 2030 and called on the Commission to present a legislative proposal revising Directive 94/62/EC which would include waste reduction measures and targets and ambitious essential requirements to reduce excessive packaging, including in e-commerce, improve recyclability and minimise the complexity of packaging, increase recycled content, phase out hazardous and harmful substances, and promote re-use.

(9) This Regulation complements Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council , under which packaging is not addressed as a specific product category. However, it should be recalled that it is possible for delegated acts adopted on the basis of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 to establish additional or more detailed requirements for packaging for specific products, in particular in relation to packaging minimisation where the design or re-design of products can lead to packaging that is environmentally less impactful.

(10) This Regulation should apply to all packaging placed on the market in the Union and to all packaging waste, regardless of the type of packaging or the material used. For reasons of legal clarity, the definition of packaging under Directive 94/62/EC should be restructured without changing the substance. Sales packaging, grouped packaging and transport packaging should be defined separately. Duplication of terminology should be avoided. In this Regulation therefore sales packaging corresponds to primary packaging, grouped packaging to secondary packaging and transport packaging to tertiary packaging.

(11) Cups, food containers, sandwich bags or other items which can perform a packaging function should not be considered to be packaging where they are designed and intended to be sold empty by the final distributor. Such items should only be considered to be packaging where they are designed and intended to be filled at the point of sale, in which case they should be considered to be ‘service packaging’, or sold by the final distributor containing food and beverages, provided that they perform a packaging function.

(12) The definition of primary production packaging should not entail an expansion of products being considered to be packaging under this Regulation. The introduction of that definition and its use in the definition of ‘producer’ should ensure that the natural or legal person making that kind of packaging available for the first time is considered to be the producer under this Regulation and not the primary sector businesses, such as farmers, using that kind of packaging.

(13) An item which is an integral part of a product and is necessary to contain, support or preserve that product throughout its lifetime and where all elements of that item are intended to be used, consumed or disposed of together should not be considered to be packaging given that its functionality is intrinsically linked to it being part of the product. However, in light of the disposal behaviour of consumers regarding tea and coffee bags as well as coffee or tea system single-serve units, which, in practice, are disposed of together with the product residue, leading to the contamination of compostable and recycling streams, those specific items should be treated as packaging. That approach is in line with the objective to increase the separate collection of bio-waste, as required by Article 22 of Directive 2008/98/EC, and ensures coherence regarding end-of-life financial and operational obligations. Paints, inks, varnishes, lacquers and adhesives that have been applied directly on a product should not be considered to be packaging. However, labels hung directly on or affixed to a product, including sticky labels affixed to fruits and vegetables, should be considered to be packaging, since, while the glue on the label is adhesive, the label itself is not. Furthermore, if a given material represents only an insignificant part of a packaging unit, and in any event no more than 5 % of the total mass of the packaging unit, such a packaging unit should not be considered to be composite packaging. The definition of composite packaging in this Regulation should not exempt single-use packaging partially made of plastics, regardless of the threshold level, from the requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/904 of the European Parliament and of the Council .