After an almost two-year discussion, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) was voted on April 24th, 2024. While the final text is said to have been watered down from its initial environmental ambition, the prevention and reuse measures show a good step forward in reducing waste.
First introduced as a Directive in 1994 and continuously amended since, the PPWR has been under discussion since 2022 to set ambitious yet realistic reduction, reuse, and recycling targets to decrease the amount of packaging waste and improve end-of-life options.
While the Directive needed transposition by all EU Member States in their own legislation and mainly dealt with recycling and managing waste, today, we witness the vote for a regulation directly applicable in all EU countries to prevent waste from being generated in the first place. With reuse measures, market restriction bans, deposit-return scheme obligations, and more, the Regulation goes a step further in setting a clear direction for packaging and recycling in the EU and throughout the world.
Since the PPWR draft was published in November 2022, discussions have been marked by unprecedented lobbying (see our article from November 2023) from industry leaders and environmental organizations. The final vote took place on April 24th after disagreements between the three legislative EU bodies on two specific subjects: the EU origin of recycled content and the plastic-centered aspect of the law.