PPWR (the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) is Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste. It replaces Directive 94/62/EC and applies directly across the whole European Union. Full application begins on 12 August 2026. The Regulation governs, among other things, the re-use of transport packaging, recyclability, recycled content and the requirements for substances present in packaging.

The Regulation came into force on 11 February 2025 and general application begins on 12 August 2026. The further requirements arrive in stages: the re-use targets, recyclability and the minimum recycled content from 2030, and the further waste reduction thresholds in 2035 and 2040.

Every participant in the packaging supply chain in the EU: producers, importers, distributors and sellers. As a regulation it applies directly – regardless of any national act. The requirements cover sales packaging as well as grouped and transport packaging.

It is a regulation. Unlike a directive it does not need to be implemented by a national act – it applies directly and uniformly in every Member State from the date of application.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is the producer's financial and organisational responsibility for the packaging they place on the market once it has been used. PPWR does not replace it – the Regulation itself governs the key elements of EPR: the producer register and the obligation to register, together with annual reporting on the mass of packaging placed on the market (Article 44), the scope of the responsibility and of the costs covered (Article 45), and producer responsibility organisations (Articles 46–47). Alongside that, PPWR sets requirements for the packaging itself – re-use, recyclability, recycled content and composition. Poland's national EPR rules and registration in BDO (Baza danych o produktach i opakowaniach oraz o gospodarce odpadami – Poland's national register of products, packaging and waste management) still apply.

It is packaging designed and placed on the market to make many rotations over its life-cycle – refilled or used again for the same purpose. In transport this means pallets, crates and RTP containers (reusable transport packaging), among others.

In everyday use, ‘returnable’ means reusable packaging circulating in a closed loop: after unloading it goes back to the sender or the operator, is washed and used again, instead of becoming waste after a single journey.

Article 29 covers the re-use of transport packaging. It sets rising targets: 40% in 2030 and 70% in 2040. From 2030 it also requires 100% re-use in specific configurations – among them within the same undertaking, and in the other cases the Regulation sets out. This is the provision that bears hardest on B2B logistics and it is squarely the domain of bekuplast packaging.

Article 5 sets the requirements for substances present in packaging – alongside the PFAS thresholds it requires substances of concern to be minimised (paragraph 1) and limits the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium to 100 mg/kg (paragraph 4). For packaging intended to come into contact with food, concentration thresholds for PFAS apply from 12 August 2026 – this is a restriction, not an outright ban (Article 5(5)).

bekuplast manufactures reusable transport containers that also work in pooling systems – but it is not a pool operator itself. We cover pooling separately on the https://en.bekuplast.pl/company/pooling/ page.