Chapter III, Article 9 · Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616

Contents

Article 9Requirements for the operation of recycling schemes#

1.A single legal entity shall act as the manager of a recycling scheme, and shall be responsible for the overall functioning of the recycling scheme.At least 15 working days prior to the start of the operation of a recycling scheme the manager of the recycling scheme shall inform the competent authority in the territory where it is established and the Commission for the purpose of its registration in the Union register established in accordance with Article 24.The manager shall provide its name, address, contact persons, the name of the scheme, a summary of the scheme not exceeding 300 words, the marking referred to in paragraph 5, a list of Member States where business operators participating in the schemes are located, and references to any decontamination installations used by the scheme. Thereafter, the manager shall ensure this information is kept up to date.

2.A compliance monitoring summary sheet shall not be established, and Article 25(1)(c), and Article 26 shall not apply when recyclers notify the production of recycled plastic as part of a recycling scheme, unless column 8 of Table 1 of Annex I requires to establish it. In case Article 25(1)(c), and Article 26 do not apply, the registration status in accordance with paragraph 2, point (g) of Article 24, as referred to in Article 25(2), shall be ‘active’.

3.The manager of the recycling scheme shall provide a single document to all participating business operators and other participating organisations. This document shall set out the objectives of the scheme, explain how it functions, provide instructions, and set out the detailed obligations it places on the participants. The explanation shall include a description of the recycling operations.

4.Recycling schemes shall be set up in accordance with the specific requirements applicable to the applied suitable recycling technology as laid down in table 1 in Annex I and, where applicable, with the authorisation of the applied recycling process.A waste collection system shall be part of a recycling scheme and shall be dedicated to the scheme so as to ensure that only materials and articles that were used subject to the scheme are collected.

5.At use stages during which their contact with food is intended or foreseeable, all materials and articles used subject to a recycling scheme shall be labelled with a marking registered in the Union register established in Article 24. That marking shall be clearly visible, indelible and unique to the recycling scheme.

6.Any food business operator using materials and articles bearing a marking provided for in paragraph 5 shall ensure that those materials and articles meet the following requirements:

(a)they are labelled, used and cleaned in accordance with instructions obtained from the manager of the recycling scheme;

(b)they are used only for the purpose of distribution, storage, display and sale of the foods which they are intended for;

(c)they are not contaminated with materials or substances other than those permitted by the recycling scheme.

Where any of these requirements is not fulfilled, the materials or articles shall be excluded from the recycling scheme and be discarded.

7.Where a scheme permits collection from consumers, collection shall take place separately from other waste at designated collection points suitable for ensuring that the collection of waste is compliant with the scheme.

8.Recycled plastic materials and articles produced in accordance with the scheme may not be placed on the market for use outside of the scheme, unless column 9 of Annex I provides for derogation to this requirement.

9.Business operators and other organisations that participate in a recycling scheme:

(a)shall operate a quality assurance system in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 2023/2006, designed to ensure compliance with the requirements of the scheme; or,

(b)alternatively, small food business operators, may implement the requirements of the scheme as part of their permanent procedures based on the ‘hazard analysis and critical control points’ (HACCP) principles, as referred to in Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council^note, applying these procedures mutatis mutandis to contamination hazards of the plastic.

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;