European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste

• Published date: 31 December 1994
• Official Gazette Publication: Diario Oficial de las Comunidades Europeas, L 365, 31 de diciembre de 1994,Gazzetta ufficiale delle Comunità europee, L 365, 31 dicembre 1994,Journal officiel des Communautés européennes, L 365, 31 décembre 1994

01994L0062 — EN — 04.07.2018 — 007.001

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►B EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste (OJ L 365 31.12.1994, p. 10)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
M1	REGULATION (EC) No 1882/2003 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 29 September 2003	L 284	1	31.10.2003
►M2	DIRECTIVE 2004/12/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 February 2004	L 47	26	18.2.2004
►M3	DIRECTIVE 2005/20/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 9 March 2005	L 70	17	16.3.2005
M4	REGULATION (EC) No 219/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 March 2009	L 87	109	31.3.2009
►M5	COMMISSION DIRECTIVE 2013/2/EU Text with EEA relevance of 7 February 2013	L 37	10	8.2.2013
►M6	DIRECTIVE (EU) 2015/720 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL Text with EEA relevance of 29 April 2015	L 115	11	6.5.2015
►M7	DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/852 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL Text with EEA relevance of 30 May 2018	L 150	141	14.6.2018

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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 94/62/EC

of 20 December 1994

on packaging and packaging waste

Article 1

Objectives

1. This Directive aims to harmonize national measures concerning the management of packaging and packaging waste in order, on the one hand, to prevent any impact thereof on the environment of all Member States as well as of third countries or to reduce such impact, thus providing a high level of environmental protection, and, on the other hand, to ensure the functioning of the internal market and to avoid obstacles to trade and distortion and restriction of competition within the Community.

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2. To that end, this Directive lays down measures aimed, as a first priority, at preventing the production of packaging waste and, as additional fundamental principles, at reusing packaging, at recycling and other forms of recovering packaging waste and, therefore, at reducing the final disposal of such waste in order to contribute to the transition towards a circular economy.

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Article 2

Scope

1. This Directive covers all packaging placed on the market in the Community and all packaging waste, whether it is used or released at industrial, commercial, office, shop, service, household or any other level, regardless of the material used.

2. This Directive shall apply without prejudice to existing quality requirements for packaging such as those regarding safety, the protection of health and the hygiene of the packed products or to existing transport requirements or to the provisions of Council Directive 91/689/EEC of 12 December 1991 on hazardous waste (1).

Article 3

Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive:

1.‘packaging’ shall mean all products made of any materials of any nature to be used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery and presentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods, from the producer to the user or the consumer. ‘Non-returnable’ items used for the same purposes shall also be considered to constitute packaging.

‘Packaging’ consists only of:

(a)sales packaging or primary packaging, i. e. packaging conceived so as to constitute a sales unit to the final user or consumer at the point of purchase;

(b)grouped packaging or secondary packaging, i. e. packaging conceived so as to constitute at the point of purchase a grouping of a certain number of sales units whether the latter is sold as such to the final user or consumer or whether it serves only as a means to replenish the shelves at the point of sale; it can be removed from the product without affecting its characteristics;

(c)transport packaging or tertiary packaging, i. e. packaging conceived so as to facilitate handling and transport of a number of sales units or grouped packagings in order to prevent physical handling and transport damage. Transport packaging does not include road, rail, ship and air containers.

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The definition of ‘packaging’ shall be further based on the criteria set out below. The items listed in Annex I are illustrative examples of the application of these criteria.

(i)Items shall be considered to be packaging if they fulfil the abovementioned definition without prejudice to other functions which the packaging might also perform, unless the item is an integral part of a product and it is necessary to contain, support or preserve that product throughout its lifetime and all elements are intended to be used, consumed or disposed of together.

(ii)Items designed and intended to be filled at the point of sale and ‘disposable’ items sold, filled or designed and intended to be filled at the point of sale shall be considered to be packaging provided they fulfil a packaging function.

(iii)Packaging components and ancillary elements integrated into packaging shall be considered to be part of the packaging into which they are integrated. Ancillary elements hung directly on, or attached to, a product and which perform a packaging function shall be considered to be packaging unless they are an integral part of this product and all elements are intended to be consumed or disposed of together.

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1a.‘plastic’ shall mean a polymer within the meaning of Article 3(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2), to which additives or other substances may have been added, and which is capable of functioning as a main structural component of carrier bags;

1b.‘plastic carrier bags’ shall mean carrier bags, with or without handle, made of plastic, which are supplied to consumers at the point of sale of goods or products;

1c.‘lightweight plastic carrier bags’ shall mean plastic carrier bags with a wall thickness below 50 microns;

1d.‘very lightweight plastic carrier bags’ shall mean plastic carrier bags with a wall thickness below 15 microns which are required for hygiene purposes or provided as primary packaging for loose food when this helps to prevent food wastage;

1e.‘oxo-degradable plastic carrier bags’ shall mean plastic carrier bags made of plastic materials that include additives which catalyse the fragmentation of the plastic material into micro-fragments;

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2.‘packaging waste’ shall mean any packaging or packaging material covered by the definition of waste laid down in Article 3 of Directive 2008/98/EC, excluding production residues;

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2a.‘reusable packaging’ shall mean packaging which has been conceived, designed and placed on the market to accomplish within its lifecycle multiple trips or rotations by being refilled or reused for the same purpose for which it was conceived;

2b.‘composite packaging’ shall mean packaging made of two or more layers of different materials which cannot be separated by hand and form a single integral unit, consisting of an inner receptacle and an outer enclosure, that it is filled, stored, transported and emptied as such;

2c.the definitions of ‘waste’, ‘waste management’, ‘collection’, ‘separate collection’, ‘prevention’, ‘reuse’, ‘treatment’, ‘recovery’, ‘recycling’, ‘disposal’, and ‘extended producer responsibility scheme’ laid down in Article 3 of Directive 2008/98/EC shall apply;

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11.‘economic operators’ in relation to packaging shall mean suppliers of packaging materials, packaging producers and converters, fillers and users, importers, traders and distributors, authorities and statutory organizations;

12.‘voluntary agreement’ shall mean the formal agreement concluded between the competent public authorities of the Member State and the economic sectors concerned, which has to be open to all partners who wish to meet the conditions of the agreement with a view to working towards the objectives of this Directive.

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Article 4

Prevention

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1. Member States shall ensure that, in addition to the measures taken in accordance with Article 9, other preventive measures are implemented in order to prevent generation of packaging waste and to minimise the environmental impact of packaging.

Such other preventive measures may consist of national programmes, incentives through extended producer responsibility schemes to minimise the environmental impact of packaging, or similar actions adopted, if appropriate, in consultation with economic operators, and consumer and environmental organisations, and designed to bring together and take advantage of the many initiatives taken within Member States as regards prevention.

Member States shall make use of economic instruments and other measures to provide incentives for the application of the waste hierarchy such as those indicated in Annex IVa to Directive 2008/98/EC or other appropriate instruments and measures.

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1a. Member States shall take measures to achieve a sustained reduction in the consumption of lightweight plastic carrier bags on their territory.

Those measures may include the use of national reduction targets, maintaining or introducing economic instruments as well as marketing restrictions in derogation from Article 18, provided that these restrictions are proportionate and non-discriminatory.

Such measures may vary depending on the environmental impact of lightweight plastic carrier bags when they are recovered or disposed of, their composting properties, durability or...