Recyclable plastic packaging (Design for Recycling)

Check the information given by the supplier showing that the material packaging specification fulfil the requirement.

This requirement is a technical specification, which means that it shall be fulfilled by the supplier biding a tender. Upon request, the supplier shall be able to verify that the requirement is fulfilled. The material requirements for packaging and closures set contribute to improving the quality of the recycled raw material. This may drive up demand for recycled material as well as increasing the volume available on the market.

Scope

• The requirement includes both stiff and soft plastic packaging. Only packaging of mono-material of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and transparent PET fulfil the requirement today. Note that low respectively high density polyethylene, LDPE and HDPE, are included as variants of PE. This means that halogenated plastics, e g PVC, can’t  be used in the packaging.
• The requirement can’t be set on laminate packaging layers of different plastics, which do not fulfill the requirement, e g sterile primary,  and also secondary, laminate packaging used within hospital care. Thicker monolayer packaging is often needed to moisture sensitive products. That is a reason for using at thinner laminate to the primary packaging.
• The packaging can be an integrated part of a medicinal technical product or a pharmaceutical product and is the considered as a part of the product and not a separate packaging.

It is important to have a dialogue with the market before setting the requirement to consider for which products groups and packaging layers to be relevant for application and if there is a market demand. Read more about market analysis.

Self-declaration in accordance with ISO/IEC 17029

There are currently no accredited verification bodies in accordance with ISO/IEC 17029 (Conformity assessment – General principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies) since it is a relatively new standard. However, this may change, especially if demand increases for verifying compliance with requirements in this way. This possibility is therefore included in the list of suggested verification methods. For more information, see the Swedac website.

Design for recycling is a necessity in order to be able to promote a circular economy, as is also emphasised in the EU plastics strategy with its goal that packaging shall be able to be recycled.¹ It is important that plastic packaging is designed so as to be recyclable and that producers of plastic packaging take circularity into consideration during the design phase so that the packaging is easy to sort and conforms to existing collection systems.

Great environmental gains can be made by prioritising products and plastics for which there are already-existing recycling systems. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and clear, blow-moulded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are plastics that can be recycled using systems available today, where they are used as mono-materials. Packages made from expanded polystyrene (EPS) are not currently separated out in established recycling systems. This is planned to be included in recycling systems no earlier than 2023. Further information is available on the websites of FTI (Förpacknings- och Tidningsinsamlingen) or TMR (Tailor-Made Responsibility) (link in swedish)

¹ The EU plastics strategy, January 2018 

The version date indicates when the sustainability criterion was created or last updated. Last reviewed dated tells when we last checked that the sustainability criterion still is relevant.