The European Commission announced on Tuesday a set of new pilot actions aimed at creating common EU-wide rules for the plastics recycling, forming part of a series of measures to revitalize the plastics recycling sector planned to be released over the next several months.
According to the Commission, the new measures come as demand for recycling and circular plastics is expected to increase, yet the plastic recycling sector faces a series of challenges – ranging from market fragmentation for recycled materials and high energy costs to unfair competition from third countries – that is holding back growth in recycling capacity and putting significant financial pressure on EU companies in the sector. The Commission noted that growth in European plastics recycling capacity slowed 17% in 2021 to only 6% in 2023, and that the proportion of materials used in EU coming from recycled materials has increased only modestly over the past decade, rising to 12.2% in 2024 from 11.2% in 2015.
The new actions come ahead of the Commission’s planned Circular Economy Act, expected to be launched in 2026, with proposed new regulations aimed at accelerating the transition to a more circular economy, and targeting goals to double the EU’s circularity rate. The Commission has identified two main pillars likely to form the focus of the upcoming act, including targeting e-waste, with measures aimed at ensuring effective collection and recycling, and to generate marketing demand for the secondary critical raw materials, as well as a series of measures to foster the single market for waste, secondary raw materials and their use in products, such as reforming end of waste criteria, simplifying, digitalizing and extending extended producer responsibility schemes, and setting mandatory criteria for public procurement of circular goods and services in order to stimulate demand.
The new package presented by the Commissions includes an implementing act to create EU-wide end-of-waste criteria for plastics under the Waste Framework Directive, aimed at establishing clear and harmonized rules on when plastic waste ceases to be waste and are considered raw materials again. According to the Commission, the harmonized rules will reduce administrative burdens and create a level playing field across the Single Market, making it easier to trade and use recycled plastics across borders. The measures will also help consumers to ensure that recycled plastics meet high-quality and safety standards, and to incentivize the collection and recycling of plastic waste, according to the Commission.
The new measures also include new rules for member states to calculate, verify and report recycled content in PET single-use plastic bottles, which include chemically recycled content, helping chemically recycled plastics contribute to achieving EU recycling targets.
The Commission also announced a series of measures to ensure fair competition between EU-made and imported plastics, including the creation of separate customs codes to differentiate between virgin and recycled plastics, and the launch of monitoring efforts for EU and global markets for virgin and recycled plastics which will inform potential trade measures to be considered next year.
The Commission added that it will determine the need for additional measures to ensure a level playing field for the EU plastics value chain in the course of 2026.
Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, said:
“Europe’s competitiveness and resilience depend on how efficiently we use our resources. With today’s measures, we are taking concrete steps to help the struggling plastics recycling sector in Europe and towards building a genuine Single Market for circular materials.”
