Why New EU Recyclable Packaging Design Guidelines Are Disrupting the Industry

The EU’s recyclable packaging design guidelines are set to shift the way you package your products. That’s because these new guidelines will force businesses to move beyond the theoretically recyclable packaging of today to packaging that withstands the rigours of real-world recycling infrastructure. The guidelines fall under an EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) called Design for Recyclability (D4R), which will go into force in 2030.  That means if you want to continue selling in the EU, it’s time to make some changes. 

In this guide, we are going to tell you about the shift in what environmentally-friendly packaging design means and how that ties in with the EU’s new recyclable packaging design guidelines. We’ll also discuss why plastic free packaging design is being replaced by mono material packaging design and why small businesses need to get on board.  

How the Meaning of Eco-Friendly Packaging Is Shifting

If you run a small business, you’ve come across eco-friendly or eco-conscious packaging. For the most part, this has meant packaging made with recycled material or made with materials that are recyclable. Being environmentally friendly with your packaging has also meant reducing plastics in your packaging or eliminating them altogether.

While employing all of those methods to ensure your packaging is eco-conscious may be enough right now, it will not be by 2030 if you plan to sell in the EU. That’s because the EU wants your packaging to not only look like it is eco-conscious, but rather, it needs to function as eco-conscious too. 

What is Design for Recyclability?

Packaging created with D4R guidelines is made of materials that work in real-life recycling systems. That means the packaging should be easy to collect from homes and businesses. It should also be easy to sort, recycle, and convert into new material that can be used in the market.

While you might be thinking that a lot of packaging is already recyclable and has been for several decades, that isn’t exactly true. While there is a lot of packaging in the market that claims to be recyclable, it is only recyclable in theory. When that same packaging enters a circular recycling system, it does not fare well. There are many issues associated with this theoretically recyclable packaging. While individual pieces of the packaging may contain recyclable materials, when put together, they may hit speed bumps in real-life scenarios.

For example, a piece of packaging may be made of kraft paper, while the lining is made of plastic laminates. When that packaging goes through the recycling process, it may get stuck in the sorting stage as it is not purely paper, nor is it purely plastic.  The D4R guidelines are designed to help circumnavigate these bumps along the way by creating packaging that does not jam up recycling infrastructure.

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How D4R Will Work

As of 2030, your packaging will receive a grade, and if your grade is below a ‘C’, it means it is not recyclable according to EU rules and therefore not permitted for sale in the EU. 

The grading is as follows:

• ‘A’ indicates your packaging is 95% or more recyclable.
• ‘B’ indicates your packaging is 90% to 95% or more recyclable.
• ‘C’ indicates your packaging is 70% to 80% or more recyclable.

By 2038, all packaging will need to have a grade of ‘B’ or higher.

How Your Grade Will Affect the Fees You Pay

The fees you will have to pay will be linked to how recyclable your product packaging is. More specifically, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) fees are going to be tied to your packaging’s performance, so that the lower your package's recyclability, the higher your costs will be. 

What Makes My Packaging Compliant with EU Guidelines

You might be wondering what more you can do besides using recycled material in your packaging to be EU compliant. The key is ensuring your packaging is as simple as possible.

Keep it Simple

Packaging that is made out of a single material is the easiest to recycle. Compatible

It is not just the body of your packaging that needs to follow recyclable packaging design guidelines; you also need to address the additional components, such as the following:

• Closures
• Labels
• Sleeves
• Windows
• Liners
• Adhesives

Each of the individual components of your packaging also has recyclable packaging design guidelines. For example, if you place any type of label or sticker on your packaging, it must be washable.

Prevent Confusion

Anything that could cause difficulty in the cycle should be avoided. That means things like putting coatings on packaging that make it hard to identify the material. For example, if you put a metallic or matte finish on your packaging, it could be difficult for the actual material underneath the coating to be identified during the collection and sorting part of the recycling process. 

Work With EU Recycling Infrastructure

By 2035, all packages have to be recyclable at scale. That means they have to be compliant enough that they can be collected from EU households. They can be sorted using EU technologies and can be recycled and converted in the EU. That means that you have to specifically think about EU guidelines for recycling, not general guidelines for recycling.

How to Make Sure Your Packaging Is Easily Convertible

Recycling means that your actual packaging material should be easily converted into another form for use. Therefore, your packaging should not affect that conversion process. So, things like adhesives and inks should easily wash off like packaging such as kraft bags made with washable ink, and things like coatings and chemicals should not affect the overall repurposing process.

Reduce Chemicals

The EU’s new packaging guidelines also require that chemicals and metals be limited in packaging. These chemicals and metals can make the difference between whether you get a passing grade to sell in the EU or not. Specifically, things like barriers and other types of coatings, as well as inks, can affect whether your packaging is compliant or not. 

The easiest way to go about packaging while ensuring you’re complying with the rules is to limit the number of chemicals in your packaging. Additionally, there is a ban on specific chemicals like PFAs in food packaging. 

Don’t Forget About Labels

This is a big one. Your packaging must include very specific details in order to be accepted into the EU market.  Your labels should include information like the type of material used, as well as the amount of recycled material used. You will also need to provide QR codes so that consumers can look up product information digitally. 

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What Are the New Packaging Trends?

For a very long time, there has been a big push by the EU to reduce plastics Because of that, many companies wanting to sell in the EU have made efforts to reduce plastics in their packaging. And while that is all well and good, the EU’s new recyclable packaging design guidelines have reduced their emphasis on low plastic usage.

Instead, they've increased their emphasis on the real-world recyclability of packaging.That means there are several new trends when it comes to packaging. Those trends include mono material packaging design and alternative plastic-free packaging design.

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What is Mono Material Packaging?

Mono material packaging design utilizes materials made out of one member of a material family. For example, a package made of mono material plastic must be made of a single type of plastic like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), not a mix of plastics. The same goes for all mono material packages like single metal or single paper. 

Existing packaging choices include those made with several material types laminated together. This type of packaging is difficult to separate during the recycling cycle and, therefore, will eventually be non-compliant with EU packaging regulations.

With mono material packaging, all of the layers of your packaging should be able to go through the same recycling process. For example, that means the barrier in a coffee bag, the outside material, and the coating on the outside material should be able to go through the same recycling pipeline. 

Certain types of packaging often require greater mixes of materials, like flexible packaging. Flexible packaging often combines materials from different material families, like paper and plastic. While this combination of materials may be the most economical way of creating flexible packaging, it is not a very eco-conscious way to do so and therefore not D4R compliant.

How Mono Material Packaging Works

Mono packaging is the way of the future in packaging design. While currently, only the EU has laid out its strict recyclable packaging design guidelines and provided a timeline for implementation, chances are that more governments will follow suit. In order to prepare your business for new packaging around the world, mono material packaging ideas need to be explored as an opportunity to stay ahead of what is to come in packaging requirements.

Types of Mono Material Packaging Available

Although stringent recyclable packaging design guidelines for the EU market are new, there are already a variety of packaging components that comply. Examples include the following:

• Mono material coffee boxes made with kraft paper
• Mono aluminium tins for consumables and cosmetics
• Mailers made of a single paper type

Why Mono Material is Compliant with EU Recycling Flows

Mono materials can enter a recycling flow and cycle all the way through easily. They are easy to place for collection and easy to sort. Ultimately, the purpose of these new regulations is to reduce waste by recycling materials, and mono materials can be used more easily to create new usable materials. 

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What Is Plastic Free Packaging?

There has long been a push to reduce the use of plastics in packaging. That push started with the elimination of plastic shopping bags and moved on to other areas of packaging.  Let’s look at the reasons plastic free packaging has gained prominence.

Customer Expectation

Packaging without plastic has become the standard, and customers expect the businesses they use to be on board.

Brand Story

Many business brand stories co-exist with the eco-conscious movement. This means that plastic-free packaging is a minimum requirement when it comes to claiming your business is environmentally-conscious and actively taking steps to protect the earth.

Retailer Expectations

Since small businesses expect to have eco-friendly options, creating plastic-free packaging has become a necessity for packaging producers rather than an option.

Types of Plastic-Free Packaging

There are a plethora of options if you are looking for plastic-free packaging ideas. They range from kraft paper bags to aluminium tins to glass jars. While some of the plastic-free options have been more expensive in the past, the costs are reducing as plastic-free packaging becomes the norm.

Why Plastic-Free Packaging Isn’t the Whole Answer

Plastic-free packaging doesn’t automatically mean the packaging is suitable for real-world recycling system scenarios. Non-plastic packaging can include a variety of coatings or laminations that can’t easily be separated during recycling. So just because your packaging is plastic-free does not mean it will be compliant with the new EU recyclable packaging design guidelines.

Why Colorful Packaging May Be a Thing of the Past

Businesses use specific colors on packaging to distinguish their brand from others. Colors are also used to create a mood or aesthetic. According to the new EU guidelines, less is more when it comes to color. There are several reasons why colors in packaging are a problem. 

• It is difficult for near-infrared detection within recycling systems to detect colors. 
• Certain colors, especially dark ones, make it difficult for automatic sorting systems to accurately detect materials, leading to diminished quality in converted materials.

What Colors Should I Use?

Light colored packaging appears to work best for real-world recycling systems. That’s because it can be detected more easily. Light-colored packaging also creates better usable material in the conversion process. 

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What to Discuss With Your Packaging Supplier

You should ensure you have a copy of the D4R guidelines so that you can share your requirements with your packaging supplier. As these guidelines will become more stringent in the coming years, it is best to start ensuring compliance with all aspects of your packaging now instead of trying to make changes later. 

In order to get ready for the new EU requirements, you need to have a frank conversation with your packaging supplier about the new requirements. Ideally, your supplier should be in the know about the D4R requirements, but if not, there are some key questions that you will need to ask. The following is a list of questions you should ask:

• Do you have packaging options made of single material types?
• Is your packaging compliant with real-world recycling infrastructure in the EU?
• If your packaging is not compliant, will it be client within the next four years?
• Does the packaging I currently use have mixed materials in it?
• What do you suggest as good mono material packaging options to replace my current packaging?

If you don’t make the grade when it comes to your packaging, it could take a lengthy period of time to overhaul all aspects of your packaging. During that overhaul time period, you will have to stop sales in the EU, which could have a major impact on your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to ask all of the right questions before you make the switch to your new packaging.

Why You Should Start Making Changes to Your Packaging Now

While the two-phase implementation of the EU’s D4R requirements doesn’t happen until 2030 and 2035, getting prepared now is the best thing a small business can do. There are several reasons why it makes sense to start switching over your packaging,

1. It will take time for you to figure out what type of packaging you can use that is going to work for your products while also being compliant.
2. Certain products, especially food products, have very particular packaging needs to keep them fresh and intact. To ensure that your new packaging is going to work for you, you will go through some trials and errors, and all of that takes time.
3. If you get everything in place before D4R goes into effect, you will likely be ahead of the game and build credibility because of it.
4. You can let your customers know as soon as you are compliant with the EU’s recyclability requirements, which can give your brand credibility, especially when your competitors have yet to be compliant.
5. Not only is early compliance a great way to build credibility and trustworthiness, but it’s also a tool you can use for positive marketing. 

The Bottom Line

The early bird gets the worm, and in this case, small businesses that adopt the EU’s recyclable packaging design guidelines will reel in eco-conscious customers who appreciate a business that stays ahead of the curve and cares about the planet. There are many packaging options currently available on the market that are compliant with the new requirements. 

If you start switching your packaging over now, you’ll put less stress on yourself and your employees. You’ll also be able to make changes without a looming deadline forcing you to cut corners. And most importantly, you’ll be prepared for what’s about to come on the eco-conscious packaging landscape in the EU and in many other markets, too. 

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