Station 04: Packaging types and formats
Sales, grouped, transport, service and e-commerce packaging - the format decides which obligations attach.
The station guide
Working guides in this station
Packaging types and formats Composite and Multimaterial Packaging: Assessed as a Unit, Judged by Its Parts Cartons with plastic windows, pouches of three films, paper cups with polymer linings: how the PPWR classifies composites, grades the unit, and applies substance rules component by component. Packaging types and formats E-Commerce Packaging: The Parcel as a Regulated Object The regulation names e-commerce packaging separately for a reason: the 50 percent empty-space cap audits it, the doorstep defines its waste reality, and distance sellers carry its producer duties state by state. Packaging types and formats Format Changes That Change Your Duties: Redesigns, Repacks and Category Flips A sleeve added, a bundle reconfigured, a tray becomes the shelf unit: small packaging changes can flip a format's category, grade and file. The change-control guide for packaging teams. Packaging types and formats Grouped Packaging: Bundles, Trays and Shelf-Ready Cases Grouped packaging bundles sales units for handling or presentation and can be removed without harming the product. Its duties: minimisation, empty space when it travels, and the reuse conversation arriving in 2030. Packaging types and formats Packaging Units and Components: The Granularity Every Duty Uses Grades are per unit, substances per component, fees per tonne placed, content per plastic part. Getting the unit/component distinction right is the arithmetic foundation of the whole compliance file. Packaging types and formats Primary Production Packaging: Crates, Trays and Harvest Containers The packaging of unprocessed agricultural and fishery production has its own definition in the PPWR - and its own economics of reuse, hygiene and short loops. What the category covers and how it is treated. Packaging types and formats Reusable Packaging: The Legal Definition and Why 'Durable' Is Not Enough Reusable packaging must be conceived for multiple rotations AND placed into an actual reuse system. The two-part test, the rotation evidence, and the products that fail the second half. Packaging types and formats Sales Packaging: The Unit the Consumer Takes Home Sales packaging carries the fullest duty set in the regulation - grading, content, labels, minimisation. What defines it, where its edges blur with grouped packaging, and how to scope a range review. Packaging types and formats Service Packaging: Filled at the Point of Sale Cups, bags, boxes and wrap filled where they are sold. Service packaging is where small businesses meet the regulation directly - and where the compostables list and format bans bite first. Packaging types and formats Single-Use vs Reusable: How the Law Draws the Line Not price, not thickness, not marketing language: the line is design intent plus a functioning reuse system. Borderline cases - durable carrier bags, deposit cups, refill tubs - decided the way the regulation decides them. Packaging types and formats Transport Packaging: Pallets, Crates, Film and the Reuse Tiers Transport packaging moves goods between businesses and carries the regulation's reuse centre of gravity: 40 percent reusable by 2030, 100 percent for internal tiers, plus content rules for its films and the empty-space cap.