EU packaging rules now apply: what changed for bag buyers on 12 August 2026

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste, known as PPWR, has applied across the EU since 12 August 2026. It entered into force on 11 February 2025 and replaced the 1994 Packaging Directive, which was generally repealed on the same August date. The European Commission's own page states the position plainly: status, in force since 11 February 2025; application date, 12 August 2026.

What the regulation actually asks for

PPWR sets mandatory rules across the whole life of packaging: eco-design, recycled material content, waste prevention, reuse formats, and high-quality collection and recycling. The stated aims are that all packaging on the EU market is recyclable in an economically viable way by 2030, that recycled plastics are used safely and at scale, and that substances of concern, including PFAS in food-contact packaging above set thresholds, are restricted.

The Commission also publishes the scale of the problem it is trying to fix: packaging waste reached 186.5 kg per person in 2022, a record, and was projected to keep growing without intervention.

Where bags sit inside this

A printed carrier bag is packaging, whatever the fibre. Two things therefore change for buyers:

• Material claims have to be documented. If a bag is sold as recycled or recyclable, the specification behind that claim has to exist in writing — fibre content, coating, ink system, and where each component comes from.
• Reuse is a design requirement, not a slogan. Bags sold into reuse formats need handles, stitching and reinforcement rated for repeated trips, and the print has to survive them.

Our reading, from the factory floor

In practice the buyers who move fastest are the ones who ask for three documents with the first sample: a material composition sheet, a recycled-content declaration from the mill, and a print specification naming the ink type. None of that is difficult to produce. What is difficult is producing it retrospectively, after artwork is approved and the shipment is on the water.

Two decisions matter more than the rest. First, choose the fibre before the design: cotton canvas, jute, non-woven polypropylene and recycled PET each behave differently under a reuse claim. Second, choose the print method with the end of life in mind, because a heavy plastisol layer on a bag sold as recyclable is a contradiction that a buyer will have to explain.

Sources: European Commission, Packaging and packaging waste (Regulation (EU) 2025/40, in force 11 February 2025, application date 12 August 2026) — environment.ec.europa.eu.