New, Free Tools Provided by Forum Rezyklat to Support PPWR Compliance for Large Companies

The implementation of the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) presents a significant, data-driven challenge for market participants. Forum Rezyklat is now supporting companies with three new, freely available working aids—including a data matrix and seven practical examples for technical documentation—thereby facilitating the achievement of successful PPWR compliance across Europe.

Successful PPWR compliance starts with data quality

Achieving PPWR compliance begins with the challenge that relevant packaging information is often isolated within different departments and systems of a single large company—such as product development, purchasing, quality management, or sustainability—and may even originate from external suppliers. The new EU regulation requires that all these information points be merged, thoroughly checked, and continuously kept up to date.

According to Dagmar Glatz, sustainability expert at dm-drogerie markt and lead of the “Digitalization” expert package, the core question for companies is how they can reliably share the necessary information and integrate it as efficiently as possible into their existing data and compliance processes. To address this challenge, the experts at Forum Rezyklat have developed three coordinated working aids, which are available free of charge on the organization’s official technical publications page.

Three core building blocks for seamless information processes

Developed by experts from industry, retail, waste management, and other areas of the packaging value chain, these tools aim to promote a common understanding of the required information and support cross-company data exchange. Uniform, machine-readable data can help reduce manual data transfers and redundant inquiries. This creates a solid foundation for digital applications and a higher degree of automation, particularly in the documentation of packaging portfolios and recyclability analyses. The three quantitative and structural tools provided are:

1. Data Matrix for Packaging Attributes (Datenmatrix Packaging Attributes): This document describes standardized packaging attributes alongside their associated code lists. It helps companies uniformly record and exchange information across different systems and stakeholders without media breaks. The current matrix includes all data attributes and code lists regarding packaging materials, components, reusability, and compliance with specific substance limits required by the August 12 deadline. A future version, tailored to upcoming PPWR compliance requirements, is already in progress.

2. Template for a Standardized Conformity Declaration: This template consolidates the required data into a uniform structure. It serves as the baseline for the technical documentation upon which the final conformity assessment and declaration are built. By using this, stakeholders acting as “producers” or “manufacturers” under the PPWR can significantly reduce their administrative efforts.

3. Seven (7) Practical Examples: Forum Rezyklat provides seven exemplary, fully completed conformity declarations to illustrate the practical application of these tools across various packaging solutions. They offer a quantitative and structural demonstration of how the template’s required data can be presented in everyday practice.

Continuous updates and corporate responsibility

As the PPWR will be further shaped by additional legal acts, technical specifications, and standards, market processes and data requirements will continue to evolve. Consequently, Forum Rezyklat continuously reviews its publications, updates them in accordance with regulatory adjustments and relevant market standards, and publishes the latest versions on its website.

However, it is crucial to emphasize that the PPWR documents provided by Forum Rezyklat do not replace individual conformity assessments or formal legal reviews. The responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of the data, as well as for issuing the final conformity declaration, remains strictly with the respective company. This limitation is especially relevant regarding the seven filled-out example documents: they demonstrate potential use cases but are not universal, drop-in templates that can be transferred without modification to any given packaging scenario.

Source:

Forum Rezyklat – PPWR-Konformität