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Questions and answers on the circularity plastics package
Why is the Commission proposing these measures now and what are the general aims of the package?
The Commission proposed this package of measures in response to the urgent challenges facing the EU plastics recycling industry. It concerns, in particular, a decline in recycling capacity and an uneven playing field in relation to international competition. This package of short-term initiatives represents an important first step towards the Circular Economy Act (CEA), which the Commission will propose in 2026.
In the face of cheap oil and excess capacity in non-EU countries, growth in European plastics recycling capacity has slowed down, from 17% in 2021 to 10% in 2022 and 6% in 2023. As a result, significant capacity is now idle, with recycling companies facing bankruptcy. By the end of this year, capacity will have declined by one million tonnes, equivalent to the recycling capacity of France.
All of this is undermining the sector's ability to leverage the expected increase in demand for recycling and circular plastics, encouraged by existing EU rules on packaging waste and end of life vehicles, which will require an increasing share of plastics products to include recycled content over the coming years.
The overall objective of this package is to provide support to the sector, while also laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive and systemic approach to achieving a circular plastics economy. This is part of the Commission's broader efforts to support the transition to a more circular, competitive and low-carbon economy.
How will the EU-wide end-of-waste criteria benefit businesses and consumers?
The EU-wide end-of-waste criteria for plastics will provide businesses with clear, harmonised rules on when plastic waste ceases to be waste and are considered raw materials again.
The new harmonised rules will reduce administrative burdens and create a level playing field across the Single Market. It will make it easier to trade and use recycled plastics across borders. By establishing common quality criteria, confidence in recycled plastics will increase, enabling producers to use those criteria in more products and encouraging new investments in the recycling sector.
For consumers, these measures will help ensure that recycled plastics meet high-quality and safety standards, supporting the use of secondary raw material in more sustainable products without compromising quality.
At the same time, the measures proposed today incentivise the collection and recycling of plastic waste, contributing to energy savings, lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduced environmental and health impacts.
Overall, the end-of-waste criteria will strengthen the circular economy by treating recycled plastics as a valuable secondary raw material rather than waste, benefiting both the economy and the planet.
The public consultation is open until 26 January 2026.
How does the Commission support chemical recycling?
The EU is facing growing volumes of plastic waste, making it essential to ramp up efforts in collection, sorting, and recycling.
To meet its recycling targets, the EU supports all recycling technologies that offer better environmental outcomes than incineration or landfill. Mechanical recycling benefits from lower emissions and higher energy efficiency. At the same time, chemical recycling can play a role where mechanical methods are not feasible – particularly when high-quality recycled material is needed, such as for food packaging.
The Commission submits to the Member States today new rules for calculating, verifying, and reporting recycled content in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) single-use plastic beverage bottles. These rules will, for the first time, cover chemically recycled content. Once adopted, the rules will help the EU meet the ambitious recycled-content target set under the Single-Use Plastics Directive and drive investment in innovative recycling technologies, in a technology-neutral way. This initiative is designed to give legal certainty and confidence to investors in the long-term potential of chemical recycling.
How does this package relate to the REsourceEU initiative?
Both initiatives contribute to secure raw materials and creating a thriving domestic market for recycled materials, with a view to increasing the EU's strategic autonomy and strengthening its economic resilience.
While REsourceEU focuses on critical raw materials, this package primarily focuses on plastics. This not only strengthens supply chain resilience and reduces dependency on imported virgin materials but also increases the value and use of secondary raw materials within the EU.
How will the European Commission ensure a level playing field for European recyclers, considering the potentially unfair competition from imported materials?
The European Commission is reiterating its commitment in developing comprehensive solutions to ensure a level playing field for European recyclers.
The Commission will continue to closely monitor imports of plastics both under its newly created Import Surveillance Task Force and through the specific monitoring system introduced in March 2025 for certain industrial chemicals. The Commission conducts trade defence investigations where it receives evidence from any affected EU industry of injury suffered from dumped and/or subsidised imports. In this context, the Commission has already imposed six trade defence measures on products related to the plastics industry. Specifically on PET, there are anti-dumping measures in place against China, and anti-subsidy duties on India, covering both recycled and virgin PET. Further investigations are in progress, covering a wider range of plastic-related products. The Commission will determine the need for additional measures to ensure a level playing field for the EU plastics value chain in the course of 2026.
The Commission will also take measures to allow for better monitoring of compliance of plastics imports. It will revise customs codes to differentiate virgin plastics from recycled products, including for food contact materials. Moreover, the enforcement of the rules for recycled plastics for food contact packaging will be enhanced, notably by conducting audits of recycling installations, both within and outside the EU. This will ensure compliance with EU standards and sustainable practices.
These import measures will complement the ban on EU plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries, which will start to apply from November 2026 under the Waste Shipment Regulation.
The re-launch of the Circular Plastics Alliance will be critical to address the challenges faced by the plastics sector jointly with industry and Member States.
How does this package relate to the upcoming Circular Economy Act?
This package of short-term initiatives represents a first step towards the Circular Economy Act, which the Commission intends to propose in 2026. The measures announced today focus on actions with short term effect to support plastics recycling in the Single Market and boost investment and innovation.
The Circular Economy Act will introduce more comprehensive measures to remove barriers and improve the functioning of the Single Market for secondary raw materials, and promote demand for circular materials.
Today's package includes actions towards achieving the long-term vision of the CEA: increasing the use of recycled materials, fostering investment in circular business models, and ensuring Europe's competitiveness and resource security.
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