Save the Planet and Comply With EU Packaging Acts

You are probably used to sending your products packaged to your customers – after all, you don't want them to arrive damaged. What you may not be very familiar with is the packaging legislation within Europe. The packaging legislation focuses on recycling of packaging materials. In this blog we would like to inform you about this legislation, what it entails, how it works and how to comply.

Packaging legislation in the EU

The United Kingdom has fairly flexible packaging legislation: here you only need to register your company from 50,000 kilos of packaging waste. Germany and France, on the other hand, are much stricter: you are obliged to ensure all your packaging is being recycled. In both countries there is no threshold: you have to register when you sell your first product to a German or French customer. Since it is difficult to check whether your customers recycle the packaging, these countries know so-called ‘dual systems’, also called ’recycling managers’ or ‘waste managers’. They recycle the amount of packaging waste that is equal to the numbers you have put on the market.

Recycling

By applying for a license from a waste manager, you buy off the recycling obligation. Now the waste manager will take care of the recycling on your behalf. You must therefore indicate annually how much and what type of packaging material has been used. In France you only have to indicate exact numbers after you sell more than 10,000 products per year. In Germany this has to be done immediately. If you don’t comply with this, you run the risk of high fines of up to 200,000 euros (approx. £ 170,000 at the moment). In addition, your products may no longer be put into circulation and therefore not sold. At the moment Marketplaces like Amazon do even suspend listings from businesses without a license. From 2022, marketplaces such as Amazon must also actively check whether sellers comply with the packaging legislation in the country where they sell. If your company is not in a national register, your product listings will be blocked immediately, until you can prove that you have a license.

Enforcement

Licenses are monitored and enforced through a public register. Since this register is public, every company can gain insight into whether competitors have the required licenses and also pay for them. Your competitors can do this for you too. There are examples where Amazon seller accounts got suspended because sellers were not complying with the Packaging Act. In most of these examples they were reported by a competitor.  

As a seller in France you not only have to register your company immediately, but you also have to print the Triman on every package. You can download this symbol and use it for free and inform your customers that the packaging is recyclable. Spain and Cyprus have something similar: The Green Dot. You will need a license to use this on your packaging.

In which countries do I have to register for the Packaging Act?

We have listed all countries where you have to register right away when you start selling there. In the following EU countries you have to register and file immediately: 

• Belgium
• Germany
• Greece
• France
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Spain
• Sweden 

After reading this blog, do you have questions about packaging legislation in the EU? Do not hesitate to contact Amazonsellers. They can help you with the registration and filing in every EU country. Amazonsellers has made collective agreements with waste managers to make sure their clients pay less per kilo of packaging material.

Guest post by Jochem!
Find his business' website here - https://www.amazonsellers.co.uk/

Further reading:

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