Station 09: Labelling and marking
Harmonised sorting pictograms, material identification, recycled-content and reuse labels, and digital data carriers.
The station guide
Working guides in this station
Labelling and marking Deposit Marking: The Sign That Carries Money Deposit-return containers must be marked so the deposit is visible and machine-readable at return. National system marks during the build-out to 2029, fraud discipline, and the exporter's marking problem. Labelling and marking Labelling Compostable Packaging: Certified, Marked, and Not for the Recycling Bin Compostable packaging must say where it belongs - the organics stream - and must not borrow recycling language. Certification marks, the wording discipline, and the sorting-confusion problem the label exists to prevent. Labelling and marking Material Identification Codes and the Green Dot: The Old Symbols' Retirement The chasing-arrows numbers from Decision 97/129/EC and the Green Dot that never meant recyclable: what the voluntary system was, how the harmonised label supersedes it, and clearing the pack face without breaking sorting behaviour. Labelling and marking Misleading Symbols and Claims on Packaging: The Enforcement Pattern Self-certified green logos, invented recycling marks, vague leaf-and-globe devices: the symbol-level claims enforcement now targets, and the audit that clears a label estate of them. Labelling and marking National Marks in the Transition: Triman, Italian Labelling and the Road to One Label France's Info-Tri, Italy's environmental labelling, Spain's container marks: the national systems that govern until harmonisation, their coexistence rules, and the subtraction calendar as the EU label lands. Labelling and marking QR Codes and Data Carriers: The Pack's Digital Layer The regulation treats the data carrier as infrastructure: reusability, substance information, system details and sorting depth behind one code. Architecture, governance and the failure modes of marketing-page QR. Labelling and marking Recycled Content on the Label: The Harmonised Information Layer Recycled-content information joins the harmonised label family. How the printed figure, its basis and the digital depth fit together - and the artwork decisions to bank in the 2028 round. Labelling and marking Reusable Packaging Labelling: The QR Code From February 2029 Reusable packaging must identify itself: a label stating it is reusable plus a QR code carrying the system's information. What the consumer learns, what the operator must maintain, and the DRS distinction. Labelling and marking Small Packaging and Labelling: When the Pack Is Too Small for the Label Cosmetic minis, sachets, blister cards and confectionery: the labelling framework's treatment of minimal surfaces - digital alternatives, accompanying information, and the design choices that keep tiny packs honest. Labelling and marking The Artwork Changeover: Running 2028 and 2029 as One Programme Two regulatory waves, hundreds of SKUs, finite studio capacity: the programme management of the label transition - waves, plate and stock run-outs, approval gates and the register that keeps it honest. Labelling and marking The Harmonised Sorting Label: Material Composition, From August 2028 One label, every member state: what the sorting label shows, where it sits, which packaging is exempt, and how the implementing act's pictograms will be adopted into artwork. The core of the 2028 changeover.