According to Euwid, an alliance of industry associations is pushing for amendments to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and exemptions from requirements for industrial packaging in the EU Environmental Omnibus.

German industry associations, including Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI, Federation of German Industries), bvse Bundesverband Sekundärrohstoffe und Entsorgung (Association for Secondary Raw Materials and Waste Management) and, from the plastics industry, GKV Gesamtverband Kunststoffverarbeitende Industrie (General Association of the Plastics Processing Industry), IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (Industrial Association for Plastic Packaging) and VDMA (Association for the machinery and equipment manufacturing industry), have issued a joint paper calling for amendments to the European Packaging Regulation (PPWR). They are calling for industrial and commercial packaging to be exempted from several key provisions of the regulation as part of the Environmental Omnibus announced by the European Commission, in order to relieve companies of bureaucratic burdens in this area, as intended by the Commission with the Omnibus. The EU Environmental Omnibus offers an opportunity to make the PPWR more practical, they say.
 
From the associations’ perspective, the regulation should focus more strongly on packaging in the consumer sector, and additional bureaucratic burdens on industrial supply chains should be avoided. In particular, the associations believe that reuse requirements, reporting obligations for reusable systems, labelling requirements for waste separation, and various detailed financial and technical regulations should not apply to industrial packaging flows. This is because, they argue, industrial and commercial packaging differs structurally from packaging intended for private consumers. It is predominantly used within production, logistics and retail chains and is often reused multiple times. The associations are particularly critical of the reuse requirements set out in Article 29 of the PPWR. The associations also consider the labelling of packaging with instructions on waste separation for the correct disposal of packaging waste, as provided for in Article 12, to be not targeted in the case of industrial and commercial packaging. Further points of criticism include reporting obligations for reusable packaging under Articles 30 and 31, which set out requirements for the documentation and reporting of data.
 
In December 2025, the European Commission presented the Omnibus Package with proposals for simplification and the reduction of red tape in EU environmental law. It is now accepting feedback on this for eight weeks until 7 May 2026.
 
Sources:

• Euwid Recycling und Entsorgung 12/2026 (17.3.2026)
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