Chapter V, Article 17 · Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616

Contents

Article 17Application for the authorisation of individual recycling processes#

1.To obtain authorisation of an individual recycling process, the natural person or legal entity that developed the decontamination process of the recycling process, either exclusively for its own purposes as a recycler or for the sale or licensing of recycling or decontamination installations to recyclers, ‘the applicant’, shall submit an application in accordance with paragraph 2.

2.The applicant shall submit the application to the competent authority of a Member State accompanied by the following:

(a)the name and address of the applicant;

(b)a technical dossier containing the information specified in paragraph 5;

(c)a summary of the technical dossier.

3.The competent authority referred to in paragraph (2) shall:

(a)acknowledge receipt of the application in writing to the applicant within 14 days of its receipt, stating the date of the receipt ;

(b)inform the Authority without delay;

(c)make the application and any supplementary information supplied by the applicant available to the Authority.

4.The Authority shall without delay:

(a)inform the Commission and the other Member States of the application and make the application and any supplementary information supplied by the applicant available to them;

(b)make public the application, relevant supporting information and any supplementary information supplied by the applicant, in accordance with Articles 19 and 20 of Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, unless otherwise provided for in paragraph 6 of this Article.

5.The technical dossier shall contain the following information:

(a)any information required in the detailed guidance published by the Authority in accordance with Article 20(2);

(b)a description of the pre-processing carried out to produce plastic input suitable for being entered into the decontamination process and of the specific quality control procedures applied during collection and pre-processing, including a detailed specification of the pre-processed plastic input;

(c)a description of any required post-processing of the recycled plastic and of the intended use of the resulting plastic materials and articles and of uses for which it would not be suitable, including relevant instructions and labelling to be provided to convertors and to end-users of the recycled plastic materials and articles;

(d)a simple block diagram of all unit operations used in the decontamination process, that provides a reference to the input, output and quality control procedures applied by each operation;

(e)a piping and instrumentation diagram of the decontamination process in accordance with section 4.4 of ISO 10628-1:2014, showing only the instrumentation relevant for decontamination;

(f)a description of the quality control procedures applied at each unit operation of the decontamination process, including:

(i)the values of monitored parameters such as operating temperatures, pressures, flowrates and concentrations, and acceptable ranges thereof;

(ii)laboratory analysis and its frequency; if any,

(iii)correction and record keeping procedures; and

(iv)any other information the applicant deems relevant to fully describe its quality control procedures.

6.Information provided in accordance with paragraph 5, points (e) and (f), and equivalent information submitted in accordance with paragraph 5, point (a), may be kept confidential pursuant to Article 20(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004.

Source: EUR-Lex, © European Union, 1998-2026. Reuse authorised under Decision 2011/833/EU.

Key facts

Type

Regulation · Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 · EEA relevant

Adopted

15 Sept 2022

In force

10 Oct 2022

Applies from

10 Oct 2024

Text current to

3 Dec 2025

Made by

Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, European Commission

Official

EUR-Lex 32022R1616 · ELI

Defined terms · 24

Show every defined term

batch
means a quantity of material of the same quality, and produced using uniform production parameters at a certain manufacturing stage, stored and contained to exclude mixing with other materials, or contamination, and designated as such by a single production number.
converter
means any natural or legal person that carries out one or more post-processing unit operations;
decontamination installation
means specific equipment operating a decontamination process;
decontamination process
means a specific sequence of unit operations which together have as primary purpose to remove contamination from plastic input in order to make it suitable for contact with food, using a specific decontamination technology;
decontamination technology
means a specific combination of physical or chemical concepts, principles, and practices part of a recycling technology which have as primary purpose to remove contamination or to purify;
food-grade
means plastic that was as primary material compliant with Regulation (EU) No 10/2011;
incidental contamination
means contamination present in plastic input originating from food, from plastic materials and articles intended and used for contact with food, from their use or misuse for non-food purposes, and from the unintentional presence of other substances, materials and articles due to waste management;
manufacturing stage
means one or more sequential unit operations and which are followed by a quality assessment of the material resulting from that stage;
Non-food %
(% w/w) means the maximum amount of non-food PCW present in the input;
Non-food PCW
means packaging that was not used to package food and may not have been manufactured in full compliance with Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 and other post-consumer plastic materials which were not intended for contact with food;
plastic input
means the plastic materials resulting from pre-processing which are entered into a decontamination process;
post-consumer waste
means plastic waste collected in accordance with Article 6;
post-processing
means all unit operations subsequent to the decontamination process by which its output is further polymerised, otherwise treated, and/or converted, resulting in recycled plastic materials and articles in their finished state;
pre-processing
means all waste management operations carried out to sort, shred, wash, mix or otherwise treat plastic waste in order to make it suitable for the decontamination process;
recycled content
refers to the amount of recycled plastic directly resulting from the decontamination process of a recycling process contained either in further post-processed recycled plastic or recycled plastic materials and articles manufactured therefrom.
recycled plastic
means plastic resulting from the decontamination process of a recycling process and plastic resulting from subsequent post-processing operations and that is not yet transformed into recycled plastic materials and articles;
recycled plastic materials and articles
means food contact materials and articles in their finished state, and that are made either fully or partly of recycled plastic;
recycler
means any natural or legal person who applies a decontamination process;
recycling facility
means a location where at least one decontamination installation is located;
recycling installation
means the equipment operating at least a part of a recycling process;
recycling process
means a sequence of unit operations that is intended to manufacture recycled plastic materials and articles through pre-processing, a decontamination process, and post-processing, and which is based on a specific recycling technology;
recycling scheme
means an arrangement between legal entities to manage the use, separate collection and recycling of plastic materials and articles with the objective to limit or prevent their contamination in order to facilitate their recycling;
recycling technology
means a specific combination of physical or chemical concepts, principles, and practices to recycle a waste stream of a certain type and collected in a certain way into recycled plastic materials and articles of a specific type and with a specific intended use, and includes a decontamination technology;
unit operation
means a basic operation that is part of a process, and applies a single transformation to its input, or more transformations if they occur in conjunction;