Packaging Ecodesign Standards

Industrial companies are entering the era of the circular economy. The packaging sector is directly concerned by this and accepts the challenge, having set up recycling and energy recovery systems for packaging waste some twenty years ago. It is now investing to meet changing regulations, which call for more reusable or biodegradable packaging.

There is a collection of European ecodesign standards to meet each of these requirements:

• In 13427: think about the design of a packaging by deciding whether it will be reusable or single-use, and what its end-of-life will be in any case;

• EN 13428: reducing is good, but it has to be done carefully, so as not to put on the market packaging that is too fragile, or that the consumer will reject because it doesn't correspond to market codes. The standard provides ten criteria to be taken into account;

• EN 13429: since 2015, the European Union has been putting pressure on packaging manufacturers by demanding more packaging designed to be reusable, especially if it involves plastic bags, in line with the circular economy it promotes. This is now the legally-preferred eco-design method that takes precedence over reduction at source, since reusable packaging must be stronger than single-use packaging, and therefore possibly contain more material;

• EN 13430: recovery by recycling. This standard defines the criteria for assessing the quantity of packaging that can be effectively recycled;

• EN 13431: energy recovery. This standard gives the thermal formula for calculating whether the combustible packaging provides more energy than is needed to burn it;

• EN 13432: recovery by composting after an industrial biodegradation process.

From a legal point of view, these European standards fall into the category of voluntary standards, which allow companies to be presumed compliant with regulatory requirements when they follow their recommendations. This legal regime encourages standardization, which is favorable to the reprocessing industry, which fears disruptive packaging, while leaving room for technological innovation.

These eco-design standards date back to 2004. They are far from obsolete, given their generic nature, but regulatory requirements that are increasingly geared towards reuse point to a partial evolution of these standards, or even new, complementary standards, in the 2020s.