The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation — Regulation (EU) 2025/40 adopted in early 2025 replacing Directive 94/62/EC — sets binding recyclability, recycled-content, minimisation, reuse and labelling obligations on all packaging placed on the EU market, with progressive targets through 2030, 2035 and 2040. The elevation from directive to directly-applicable regulation removes member state transposition divergence. Key provisions: design-for-recyclability with A/B/C grading per category against material composition, separability, additive contamination, label/adhesive impact and infrastructure availability, with packaging below grade C prohibited from 2030; minimum recycled-content for plastic packaging from 2030 (contact-sensitive PET 30%, other contact-sensitive plastic 10%, non-contact-sensitive 35%) rising in 2040 (50%, 25%, 65% respectively) with mass-balance verification via ISCC Plus, REDcert² or equivalent chain-of-custody; packaging minimisation limiting empty space and over-engineering; format restrictions (single-use plastic for fresh produce, HORECA cosmetics sachets); mandatory deposit-return for in-scope single-use plastic and metal beverage containers from 2029; harmonised waste-sorting labelling pictogram from 2028 replacing the patchwork of national symbols. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes operate in every member state — Citeo (France), Der Grüne Punkt/DSD (Germany), Conai (Italy), Ecoembes (Spain), Fost Plus (Belgium), Verpact (Netherlands) and equivalents — requiring producer registration, periodic packaging mass and material reporting, and per-unit fees increasingly modulated by recyclability and recycled-content under PPWR alignment. The 'distributor-as-producer' assumption is a frequent compliance failure — brand-owners controlling packaging design are 'producers' under most member state EPR rules regardless of commercial distribution arrangement, requiring direct registration and (in France, Germany and others) appointment of a designated representative where the brand has no EU establishment.

Regulatory anchors

Regulation (EU) 2025/40
Directive 94/62/EC
ISCC Plus
16 CFR 1700

Where this term comes up

Dietary Supplements Food Processing Cosmetics Pharmaceutical Packaging & food contact

How V5 handles it

Document control — one version in force, every change signed and explained.

Draft the next revision while the current one stays in use, approve it under your sign-off route, and track training on it — with the history kept.

QMS — quality records next to the work they concern.

Deviations, corrective actions and quality review sit in the same system as production, so each quality record references the work order, step and lot it concerns.

Labels — designed, approved, checked and printed in one place.

Many plants run a separate label tool beside their production records, so label versions drift and reprints go unrecorded. In V5 the label designer, approval, printing and the recipe's label details sit with the production record: the barcode scheme set on a recipe is checked when the operator packs, and the approved artwork revision is printed on the batch record. Printer connections are configured per workspace.

PPWR

Next step

PPWR

Next step