Unpacking PPWR: How Brands Can Prepare for Europe's Packaging Regulation

 The PPWR becomes legally enforceable on 12 August 2026, but for many brands and converters, the practical questions are only just starting. In this episode, we sit down with Smithers packaging specialist Rob Outram to unpack what the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation actually means in practice, and how businesses across the value chain can get ahead of it.

Rob draws on 30 years of consulting experience across chemicals, materials and packaging to break down:

• The difference between PPWR and EPR, and why brands need to understand both
• Which packaging formats (polystyrene, laminates, flexible plastics) are falling out of favour with recyclers, and why
• Why mono-materials are becoming the 'holy grail' of recyclable packaging
• How Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) vary by territory; and why that matters for fees and strategy
• The real story behind the shift to paper-based packaging, and its limits
• Where genuine regulatory grey areas remain.

Whether you're a brand owner managing multi-market compliance or a converter rethinking your material mix, this episode offers a grounded, practical view of where packaging regulation is heading next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Smithers Insight Podcast, the place for trends, tech, and insights driving the global markets from sustainable solutions to smart innovations. We unpack it all. Hello and welcome to the next instalment of the Smithers Insight Podcast. Today I'm joined by Rob Alchram, our in-house packaging specialist. Hi Rob, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yes, very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I wonder before we start, if you could just give me a bit of an overview as to your background and how you ended up with Smithers.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, so I'm uh quite new to Smithers, been with Smithers six months, but I spent 30 years consulting in the chemicals, materials, packaging space for various sort of consulting companies. Uh, and I've worked everything from the monomer side, the plastic sides, the pulp and paper sides to even working with major sort of brands like Unilever and Slay over the years, TetraPack, Ancore, uh around packaging.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Excellent. So you're very well placed to talk about regulations today then.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Absolutely, it's a very hot topic, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, so I suppose to kick us off, can you give us an overview as to the main regulations the packaging industry should be aware of today?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah, so there's two major ones, uh, particularly in Europe. So we have the PPWR, so that's the packaging and packaging waste regulations, and the whole ethos of this uh PPWR regulation is to reduce the amount of packaging going to landfill. So that's the first way of doing that is to simply reduce the amount of packaging on the market. So there's various sort of parameters in there that encourage uh the packaging and the companies and the brands to reduce the amount of packaging they're putting on the market, but also the the packaging that they put on the market needs to be more sustainable, so it's all about promoting recycling. Um, there's also an element of the PPWR that encourages uh good practices like deposit return schemes. Again, it's about reducing the amount of packaging going to landfill. So that's the first one. Now there's a second one called uh Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR, uh, and that's basically a mechanism where the cost of the recycling and the management of the end-of-life of packaging gets pushed back to the brands as opposed to the municipalities and the councils having to pay to basically manage that waste stream. And each EU member state or North American state, Canada, for instance, has its own format of doing it, so it becomes quite tricky. But again, much like the PPWR, it's all about encouraging reduction of the amount of packaging, it gives rewards for good practices that fit with the existing infrastructure and also penalises bad practices or bad materials that those particular member states don't like. So there's two there PPWR and EPR.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

So you mentioned the brands a couple of times and sort of the impact that these regulations will have on them. If you're sort of further down or further towards the beginning of the value chain, how how can packaging converters prepare for the impact of regulations?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah, so the converters have a tough job on their hands. I I think the first thing I would do is limit your exposure to sort of bad packaging uh formats, and you know, when you start reading through these regulations, it's very clear that materials like uh polystyrene, XPS, EPS aren't generally liked by the uh by the recyclers, it's quite difficult to recycle them, or there's no existing infrastructure in place to do that. Uh again, laminates I would put in a similar kind of position. So very, very difficult when you've got paper with a plastic uh sheet, you know, bonded, glued to it to recycle laminates. So if a converter is into laminates, I again I would be uh wary about that, and also flex flexible plastics as well from the PPWR regulation. Um, you know, you have to be able to demonstrate that you can recycle these materials at scale, and that's the key point at scale. So limiting your exposure to these sort of bad formats is is one way is one thing I need. I think you need to prepare for. The other thing is to understand where the raw materials are coming from. So the brands, you know, their customers, the converters customers, are going to be asking for all kinds of information about the raw materials, the type of packaging, what's in the packaging, what additives are in there, what coatings are in there. So they need to be geared up to answer the questions about the sort of chain of custody and also the ingredients that are going into the packaging because that's going to be asked for by their customers.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So a move more towards monomaterials with a transparency if there isn't a monomaterial option.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, absolutely. So the monomaterial that's really the holy grail if you're not having to separate uh dissimilar materials, you can recycle a monomaterial much much easier. Uh, the detection machines at the sorting place can can separate them. So there's a big push. I mentioned the EPR, you can often get bonuses around eco-modulation bonuses around having monomaterials and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And then coming back to the brand owners, we've sort of mentioned already that EPR affects them the most and they're going to be interrogating their their converters and their supply chains. How else can they prepare for regulations that are coming in?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So, one is to first of all just be on top of understanding what's coming down the pipeline, and you know, at Smithers we do a number of projects now. Um, first of all, helping customers with the existing EPR, but also understanding what's going to be coming through, so how it's going to evolve. So, you know, if you are a big brand, a Unilever, a Nestlé, or a Bayer, you know, you need to be planning years in advance in terms of your packaging strategy. So you need to understand what's coming down the pipeline. So understanding that's the main thing. The other thing is understanding absolutely everything about the packaging that you're dealing with. So it's not just the weight, that's the obvious one, because you need to stop reporting on the weights for the EPRs and paying the relevant fees, but understanding the type of material, even to the degree of what additives are in there. For instance, you know, you get penalized by EPR if you've got carbon black in some EU member states. So understanding what pigments, what additives are in there, and also the coatings. So as we're seeing the shift towards paperisation, uh obviously paper is very absorbent, you need to put a coating on it to make it water or grease proof, and understanding what coating is on there, is it an EVOH coating, and how thick is that coating and what percentage weight. So, I mean, we can go into the weeds on this, but you really need to understand everything about the packaging. Um, one, so that you can do the reporting, but also to avoid the penalties and also get the bonuses as well. And then the final thing I'd say from a brand point of view, I mean, we're talking about PPWR and EPR, but I think you need to look more holistically about the packaging as well. So, you know, we need to be looking at carbon footprint and some of these other environmental aspects because okay, it might be great to move to paper, but if it means deforesting half of Canada to do it, then then that's not a good practice. So we need to be taking brands need to be taking a holistic view of the packaging and and what's going on there.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And then you spoke about packaging strategies and having to adapt to the changing landscape. Which materials are most likely to be affected by the incoming regulations and how might those landscapes look over the next five, ten years?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, so again, I think the formats uh that the that the recyclers prefer are gonna and uh are gonna be pushed with respect to regulations and also EPR. So I mentioned the the EPS, the XPS, uh the flexible plastics, the laminates, they're the ones that I would I would kind of avoid from that point of view. And another thing, just on the the previous question that I mentioned, it's also uh and it's related to this question, is finding the right PROs. So these organizations called producer responsibility organizations, um, they run the recycling schemes and they will have their own preferences for the type of material, and they also have different fees as well. So when the brands are gearing up uh to deal with all these regulations, they really need to be understanding you know which PROs uh are in their territory and what are the fees each one's charging because you might be able to get a cost reduction in your in your fees by changing PROs or working with the PROs, and the PROs will also be able to advise you know what direction they're going in with respect to the recycling infrastructure that they're putting in place.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And then we hear quite a lot about paperisation of the packaging industry at the moment. What role does regulation play in that movement? Is it something that we're gonna see more of, or is it gonna start scaling back and be more material-based or in use case?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, I think a lot of these regulations are obviously as a result of sort of customer or or public uh desire. So obviously the public, and and again, we've done surveys at Smithers as to what you know the public uh like from packaging, and and paper is obviously seen as a very sort of green, sustainable source. It'll it will biodegrade, it will break down if you if you don't cover it in plastic. You know, the the the recycling at scale is the the key one. Uh so there's lots of different packaging formats, they all have their merits, they all have their downsides, but the key thing is the the packaging being able to be recyclable at scale. Also, EPR is is favorable for the the paper formats. Paper's quite easy to uh recycle as a good uh existing infrastructure uh around uh paper-based formats. So we are seeing a shift from plastic towards paper, and as I said, we did a recent survey where people are expecting you know paper to make inroads into um you know the market share of paper-based products, uh molded fibre and things like that being uh taking over from some of the other formats. Uh, plastic is a fantastic material though, we'd we're not going to see eradication of plastic, um uh, you know, but as you as you rightly say, you know, moving towards mono mono material plastic, that that's quite an easy recyclable area. One one final point to mention around sort of paperization. We've seen a real um portion advancement in things like barrier coatings that have really helped uh paper get into more um more complex uh areas of the of use. Um so again that's really pushed the the industry on. But as I mentioned previously, we need to be quite careful about how much coating we're putting on the paper, you know, what type of coating we're putting on the paper because it may have repercussions in terms of VPR fees going forwards.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And then I think we've there's no silver bullet to solve the the problem that we find ourselves in with waste in the packaging industry. But what's the one thing that the industry can take away or be more aware of or change to be in line with as regulations become much more important?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, it's there's no there's no silver bullet, and again it's application specific. As I said, plastic's a fantastic material for some applications that paper can't do. Paper, molded fibre, etc., is a fantastic material that's equally um uh applicable in in other applications. So there is no silver bullet, as you rightly say, you need to pick and choose your material uh as and as and when. I think that the main thing to do is to collect data, as I mentioned, not just from a reporting point of view, but from a holistic point of view, and really understand uh what the content of the packaging is, you know, what it's made out of, where it comes from, that chain of custody, the weight, the type, the source, the additives, everything that goes into it. Uh that that will be the key thing to really understand um you know where it where it's come from and what are the environment environmental implications. So it doesn't matter really whether it's plastic or whether it's molded fibre, it's having that complete visibility of the impact uh on the the environment.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Great. And I suppose finally, is there a role that deregulation plays in this world? As is PPWR too far? Is it something that the industry needs to look at and assess a little bit more? What's your your opinion around that?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, so my opinion of the PPWR, I mean, it's been a long time in the making, you know, this hasn't just suddenly leapt up on us. Uh there was a uh this is now a directive, um, a regulation rather rather than directive. So we previously had the directive, the regulation is now legally enforceable, uh, but it's been a long time in the pipeline. People have had time to to to gear up and and uh deal with PPWR. Uh that's not to say it hasn't been a challenge, then there are you know, we're helping clients with numerous grey areas within the the PPWR launching new products onto the market and understanding you know, does their packaging fit with the the the PPWR? I don't think it's gone too far. Uh I think where the where there's sort of trouble, if you if you like, is the the the on the more on the EPR side of things. So like with most sort of European legislation, they they leave the European Commission leave it to the individual uh member states to to implement that legislation themselves, and with the EPR, they all seem to have their own way of doing things, and that causes a problem. If you're a big brand and you're selling chocolate bars in France, Germany, Spain, etc. etc., you know, you need to come up with a strategy that that uh you know you can't, it's very difficult to have one type of packaging in France, another type of packaging in Germany, Germany, another type of packaging in Italy. So putting together a sort of regional-wide strategy is very, very difficult, and that that is that's where the the problem lies. So I don't think we need to rewind or or backtrack on the legislation, but I think if there was some kind of harmonisation, and that's the key word here, harmonisation with the EPR in particular, that would be really useful, and also tightening up on some of these grey areas in the PPWR legislation. I mean, just to give one example, uh, you know, there's no guidelines in the PPWR about residuals. So if you have a shampoo bottle, there's no guidelines as you, you know, 1% residual content, 2%, 5%, you know, what is acceptable uh in terms of residual contents, and that's just one area uh where there's there doesn't seem to be any sort of clear guidance. So I think we need to tighten it up, give a bit more clarity within some of these regulations, and that the EPR bit is um uh there could be some harmonisations. But that said, you know, there's a lot of commonality with the EPR. We can see in most of the member states, you know, the the move away from you know problematic materials and the shift towards monomeric uh um monomaterials is is is the way forward.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

That's great. Thank you ever so much for your time, Rol. Um, if anybody has any questions on regulations or understanding how their business can be more prepared for the incoming regulations, do feel free to reach out. Um Smithers can help in a multitude of ways. Thank you ever so much again.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

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