Objectives

The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC (EU PPWD) aims to harmonise national measures to prevent or reduce the impacts of packaging on the environment and to remove obstacles to trade and restrictions on competition. The focus of the EU PPWD is to prevent the production of packaging waste and to ensure that whatever packaging is necessary is adequately recycled and recovered to reduce the amount of waste.

The EU PPWD is based on the concept of polluter pays and producer responsibility where those businesses responsible for production and manufacture of packaging are made to take responsibility for recycling and recovery to reduce waste levels.

The EU PPWD is a New Approach directive, which means it sets down essential requirements (in Article 9) for Member States to adhere to, but leaves out the details for how to achieve these requirements.

Article 10 of the EU PPWD empowers the Commission to promote the preparation of harmonised standards relating to the essential packaging requirements set out in the Directive. The standards EN 13428:2000 (packaging,