June 30, 2026 11:29
The European Commission is taking action under Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 on recycled plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foods, with a view to introducing specific customs codes in TARIC for certain recycled plastics intended for food contact and strengthening documentary compliance checks at the EU’s borders.
To this end, in April it notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) of a draft amendment to Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 [see here].
TARIC, the EU’s integrated tariff database, is used to apply customs duties, restrictions and other trade measures to goods entering or leaving the Union.
In the draft submitted to the WTO, the Commission explains that, in order to prevent the uncontrolled entry into the EU of non-compliant recycled plastics, customs authorities should receive the Declaration of Compliance at the time of customs clearance. For this reason, specific commodity codes need to be introduced.
However, the text states that introducing codes for all recycled plastics and food-contact products would be too burdensome and therefore proposes limiting the measure mainly to PET, for which suitable technologies already exist for the use of recyclate in contact with food, and to certain articles such as kitchenware, as well as plates, sheets, film, foil and strip containing recycled PET, including where a recycled PET layer is used behind a functional barrier.
For some time, recyclers and packaging producers have been calling for stricter controls to prevent the uncontrolled entry of low-cost recycled plastic products and materials, which are difficult to verify and may in some cases be virgin plastics wrongly claimed to be recycled.
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