Packaging design for recycling: what the CGF’s new paper means for waste pickers

The fate of a plastic bottle is not decided at the bin, but much earlier, on the designer’s desk. Packaging design for recycling determines whether a bottle becomes raw material again or ends up in a landfill, on a riverbank or, worse, in an open fire. On 28 September 2026 the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Plastic Waste Coalition of Action published Packaging design in low- and middle-income countries, a paper examining how a few simple design rules can improve recycling economics and the incomes of people who make a living from waste collection in low- and middle-income countries.

In short: Packaging design for recycling directly increases the market value of used packaging, bringing more income to collectors, better feedstock to recyclers and less litter to nature. The CGF paper proposes three rules for rigid plastic packaging: clear, uncoloured PET bottles; labels, closures and printing on HDPE and PP containers that do not hinder recycling; and recycling instructions that everyone can understand.

Who actually collects the world’s plastic waste?

In Europe we are used to refuse trucks taking our waste away and sorting plants processing it. In much of the world, however, this work is done by informal waste pickers: people who collect and sort what others throw away without an employment contract, social security and often without any official recognition.

According to the World Bank classification of 1 July 2026, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are those with a gross national income per capita of USD 14,375 or less. In these countries, according to the paper, around 40 million waste pickers handle roughly 60 per cent of all plastic collected for recycling worldwide. The CGF press release puts this at around 27 million tonnes of plastic per year.

Their work is essential, yet their livelihoods are precarious. A survey in India found that waste pickers earned an average of USD 78 a month (about 7,100 rupees), roughly 37 per cent of the legal minimum wage. In Ghana, 64 per cent of waste pickers surveyed said their household had run out of food at least once in the previous twelve months. Their income depends almost entirely on the value of the material they collect, and this is where design comes in.

Why packaging design for recycling matters

The paper’s logic is simple: what is valuable gets collected; what is worthless stays where it was dropped. If a bottle or container is easy and clean to recycle, buyers pay more for it, so it is worth picking up, sorting and selling. Good design therefore works on three levels at once.

First, on collectors’ incomes: more saleable material means more revenue for the same work. Second, on recycling economics: packaging that is easy to sort by polymer, colour and format cuts the time and cost of baling and processing, and cleaner material streams help recyclers meet buyers’ quality requirements. Third, on the environment: in Indonesia, 75 per cent of the plastic that leaks into nature is low-value packaging.

The authors deliberately start with rigid plastic packaging (PET bottles and HDPE and PP containers), because collection and recycling chains for these formats already work in many LMICs. In Thailand, PET, HDPE and PP recycling accounts for more than 77 per cent of total installed recycling capacity, and in Brazil installed PET capacity exceeds 500,000 tonnes a year. In West Java, Indonesia, rigid HDPE and PP fetched on average around 3.5 times the price of multilayer plastics.

The paper estimates that poorly designed PET bottles cost waste pickers in LMICs more than USD 150 million in lost potential earnings.

Clear or coloured: what is a bottle worth?

The most striking figures come from Colombia, where average prices paid by recyclers were as follows (Colombian pesos per kg):

Clear PET is therefore worth about three times as much as coloured PET. In Indonesia, collectors receive on average 3,000 rupiah for coloured and 5,000 rupiah for clear PET, a 66 per cent difference. The reason is practical: clear recyclate can be turned back into crystal-clear bottles, while coloured material typically ends up in lower-value products such as textile fibre or strapping.

The presence of PVC, often hidden in labels or closures, matters just as much. Food-grade rPET can only be produced if PVC content stays below 15–20 ppm, and in Brazil food-grade rPET sells for about 30 per cent more than non-food-grade material. Labels alone also cost money: in Goa, India, recyclers pay 27 per cent less for labelled PET bottles (55 instead of 75 rupees per kg).

Caps, labels, printing: the price of small details

With HDPE and PP containers, the problems usually lie in the add-ons. ACLAMA, the waste pickers’ association in Cachoeira de Minas, Brazil, manually rejects around 11 per cent of rigid HDPE packaging because of non-recyclable caps, lids and labels, such as heavily glued labels or labels made from PVC or paper. What still slips into processing despite manual sorting lowers quality: Brazilian reprocessors report that PP contamination from labels and closures can reach 10 per cent by weight in the HDPE stream, pushing down the price of the recycled pellets.

Blended HDPE/PP closures are a separate problem. Buyers want a minimum volume of a single material, so mixed plastics are hard to sell, and these closures typically end up landfilled, incinerated or dumped. Blended packaging made up around 6 per cent of residual waste at 20 cooperatives surveyed in São Paulo, and recyclers in Kenya report the same issue.

One of the paper’s most technical recommendations concerns fillers: packaging density must not exceed 1 g/cm³. The reason lies in the physics of recycling: polyolefins (PE, PP) are lighter than water, so they float in sink-float separation, while PET and contaminants sink. If so much filler (for example calcium carbonate) is added to a container that it sinks, it ends up in the wrong fraction and is lost to the polyolefin stream.

When bad packaging costs money: a Brazilian cooperative

The Cooper Viva Bem cooperative in São Paulo receives around 300 tonnes of packaging sorted for recycling each month, of which roughly 45 tonnes (15 per cent) is actually non-recyclable. At around USD 29 (144 reais) per tonne for transport and USD 20 (100 reais) per tonne for landfill fees, disposing of it can cost more than USD 2,000 (about 11,000 reais) a month. That is more than three times the average monthly income of a Brazilian cooperative member, USD 590 (2,950 reais).

These costs are often borne by the cooperatives themselves, directly reducing members’ earnings. Sorting out bad packaging also takes time and storage space away from valuable material: each waste picker is estimated to lose around two working days a month sorting poorly designed packaging.

Labels that work without reading

The third recommendation concerns recycling labels, and raises a point Europeans rarely consider. In Brazil, more than 10 per cent of catadores (waste pickers) have less than one year of schooling, and Nigeria has more than 500 spoken languages. Small print in a single language means nothing to many people.

This has a tangible cost: in São Paulo, two cooperatives had to dispose of 27 per cent of otherwise recyclable packaging because the resin codes could not be identified, so the material could not be sorted or sold. The paper calls for labelling that can be understood regardless of language or literacy. As good practice it cites South Africa’s On-Pack Recycling Labelling (OPRL), highlighted by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for its simple design, easy instructions and the consumer research carried out before rollout.

The three recommendations in detail

The recommendations are drawn from the CGF’s Golden Design Rules, developed in 2020.

1. Increase the recycling value of PET

• Use clear, uncoloured PET (preferred), or at most transparent blue or green bottles with a minimum L* value of 40.
• Make sure the material, adhesive and size of labels and sleeves do not hinder recycling: phase out PETG, PLA and PVC labels and sleeves, non-water-soluble or non-dispersible adhesives, and sleeves covering more than 75 per cent of the bottle.

2. Increase the recycling value of rigid HDPE and PP

• Label material, adhesive, inks and size must not interfere with recycling: phase out paper labels and PET, PETG, PLA and PVC labels, and use only polyolefins for in-mould labels (IML).
• Use minimal or moderate direct printing (e.g. production or expiry date), and only inks that do not bleed during washing.
• Closures, liners and seals must not cause problems: phase out silicone valves, PVC and silicone seals, PS and PVC closures, and steel and aluminium caps.
• Do not use fillers that raise packaging density above 1 g/cm³.

3. Use on-pack recycling instructions

• Consumer plastic packaging should carry recycling or reuse instructions aligned with local waste management capacities.

What does this mean for Hungary?

Hungary is a high-income country, so the paper does not apply to it directly, and informal waste picking is only a narrow segment here. The physics and economics behind it are the same, though. On Hungarian sorting lines, too, coloured bottles, full-body sleeves, mixed-material caps and unreadable labels cause the most headaches, and anything that cannot be sorted into a clean fraction typically goes to energy recovery or landfill.

In the European Union, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) applies from 12 August 2026, and from 2030 only packaging designed for recycling may be placed on the market. The regulation also requires extended producer responsibility (EPR) fees to be modulated by recyclability, meaning poorly designed packaging will cost producers more as well. In Hungary the EPR system has been run by the concession company MOHU since July 2023, and a mandatory deposit return system for beverage packaging has operated since 2024. Read more in our article on the extended producer responsibility system and our review of bottle returns in the first half of 2026.

Consumers can help too: where there is a choice, prefer clear bottles, easily removable labels and single-material packaging, and dispose of used packaging according to local rules.

What to read critically

The paper is the industry’s own document, produced by a CGF coalition of more than forty major retailers, manufacturers and converters, and the authors themselves stress that its recommendations are voluntary and non-binding. Several key figures are based on the experience of a single cooperative or region, and the USD 150 million figure is an extrapolation from Indonesian and South African data.

It is also notable that the paper focuses on rigid packaging, while by its own data three quarters of the plastic leaking into nature is low-value packaging, much of it multilayer films and sachets. The authors address these only in a footnote, as a question to be assessed country by country. Reducing packaging volumes or reuse are not covered either. None of this undermines the recommendations, but it shows that good design is a necessary but not sufficient step.

The strength of the recommendations lies in their simplicity and in the fact that waste picker organisations (including the International Alliance of Waste Pickers and WIEGO) helped develop them. The authors emphasise that the rules must be adapted to local conditions with the involvement of waste pickers, recyclers, producers and regulators.

FAQ on packaging design for recycling

What does the CGF paper recommend on packaging design for recycling?

It proposes three simple rules for rigid plastic packaging. First, use clear, uncoloured PET bottles. Second, make sure labels, closures, printing and fillers on HDPE and PP containers do not hinder recycling. Third, put recycling instructions on pack that everyone can understand. The recommendations are voluntary and should be adapted to local conditions and infrastructure.

Why is a clear PET bottle worth more than a coloured one?

Because clear recyclate can be turned back into crystal-clear bottles, while coloured material typically ends up in lower-value products. In Colombia, clear PET is worth about three times as much to recyclers as green or amber PET, and in Indonesia collectors receive 66 per cent more for it. The difference shows up directly in waste pickers’ incomes.

How does packaging design for recycling affect waste pickers’ incomes?

Directly, because collectors’ earnings depend on the value of the material they gather. Well-designed packaging is worth more, while poorly designed packaging costs sorting time and disposal fees. The paper estimates that poorly designed PET bottles cost waste pickers in low- and middle-income countries more than USD 150 million in lost potential earnings.

Why are caps and labels a problem for recycling?

When their material differs from the container, they contaminate the recyclate or turn the whole pack into reject. A Brazilian waste pickers’ association rejects around 11 per cent of rigid HDPE containers for this reason, and PP contamination from labels and closures can reach 10 per cent by weight in the HDPE stream. Blended HDPE/PP caps are typically not recycled at all.

Does the paper apply to Hungary?

Not directly, because Hungary is a high-income country where informal waste picking is less common. The design principles still apply, however: on Hungarian sorting lines, too, coloured, badly labelled and mixed-material packaging causes the most problems. Under the EU’s PPWR, moreover, only packaging designed for recycling may be placed on the market from 2030.

Sources:

• The Consumer Goods Forum (2026): Packaging design in low- and middle-income countries – paper download page
• The Consumer Goods Forum (28 September 2026): Paper reveals how thoughtful packaging design can boost recycling and support worker livelihoods in low and middle-income countries – press release
• CGF Plastic Waste Coalition of Action

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