Station 15: Compostable packaging
The short list of formats that must be compostable by 2028, the standards behind them and member-state home-compost rules.
The station guide
Working guides in this station
Compostable packaging Coffee Pods and Capsules: Compostable, Collectable, or Neither The pod sits at the junction of Article 9's single-serve language and the industry's dedicated collection systems. The state of the argument, the material options, and how a coffee brand should position its range. Compostable packaging Compostable Films for Fresh Produce: Where the Family Meets the Aisle Produce films are the voluntary compostable case most often argued. Set against the Annex V produce listing and the necessity evidence, when a compostable film is defensible - and when it is a costume change. Compostable packaging Compostables and Recycling: Contamination in Both Directions A compostable in the plastics stream is a contaminant; a recyclable in the organics stream is another. The sorting behaviour, the detection technology, and the design choices that keep the streams apart. Compostable packaging EN 13432 and Compostability Certification: What the Standard Actually Tests Biodegradation, disintegration, ecotoxicity and heavy metals: the four gates of industrial compostability, the certification marks built on them, and what a certificate does not say. Compostable packaging Home Compostable vs Industrial: Two Claims, Two Standards, One Confused Public Industrial composting runs hot and managed; a garden heap does not. The separate standards and marks for home compostability, the claim wording each permits, and why the distinction decides acceptance at the facility gate. Compostable packaging Labelling Compostable Packaging: The Organics Mark and the Words Around It Compostable items join the harmonised labelling system: the sorting instruction for the organics stream, the certification marks' placement, and the claims that must never appear - marine, litter and home-compost shortcuts. Compostable packaging Member-State Composting Infrastructure: The Acceptance Map Certified compostable items are still refused at some facilities and welcomed at others. How acceptance actually works - residence times, screening, local lists - and maintaining the map your claims depend on. Compostable packaging Sourcing Certified Compostable Materials: Suppliers, Scopes and Switches Qualifying compostable supply: reading certificates at the converter, dual-sourcing a young market, price and capacity planning for the 2028 conversion wave, and change control when a formulation moves. Compostable packaging The Fruit Sticker: Compostable by 2028, Adhesive and All The smallest mandated format: the produce sticker must compost as applied - substrate, inks and adhesive together. Qualification at the printer, behaviour in the packhouse, and the sticker alternatives being weighed. Compostable packaging What Must Be Compostable by 12 February 2028: The Article 9 List Permeable tea and coffee bags, the single-serve units used with them, and sticky labels on fruit and vegetables. The list's exact edges - and the member-state power to extend it. Compostable packaging When Compostable Is the Wrong Answer: An Honest Decision Guide Five situations where compostability loses - to recycling, to reuse, to reduction, to paper, to doing nothing yet - and the questions that reveal them before the development budget is spent.