Packaging is everywhere, making up a staggering 40% of all plastic consumption in the EU.

Yet its widespread use is understandable when we consider its critical role protecting food and other goods, enhancing consumer experience, and sharing vital information throughout the supply chain and with end users.

The European Commission’s forthcoming Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will bring in a range of policies to ensure that packaging can continue to fulfill these essential functions but with a much lower environmental footprint. Among these measures is the establishment of targets for reuse. Through using packaging multiple times, we can reduce the overall volume of packaging required, decreasing both material consumption and carbon emissions.

To achieve their full potential, however, reuse schemes need to be ambitious in terms of both scale and scope and supported by the right policies and framework. Reloop, an international nonprofit organization whose vision is a world free of waste, has published a position paper setting out key principles for maximizing the opportunity created by the PPWR to create an effective reuse policy.

The paper is backed by a pan-European coalition of small and large businesses, including Borealis, as well as municipalities and NGOs, who are united in a mission to place reuse at the heart of Europe’s packaging transformation.

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