Station 06: Recycled content
The plastic recycled-content targets for 2030 and 2040, how they are calculated and the evidence behind a claim.
The station guide
Working guides in this station
Recycled content Beverage Bottles: 30 Percent by 2030, 65 by 2040, and the Deposit Stream That Feeds Them Single-use plastic beverage bottles carry their own Article 7 category - and a pre-existing 2025 target under the single-use plastics rules. How the two regimes meet, and why deposit return decides whether the numbers work. Recycled content Certification and Chain of Custody: The Evidence Behind a Percentage EuCertPlast for recyclers, RecyClass and ISCC PLUS for custody and attribution: what each scheme certifies, how certificates chain together, and the scope checks that keep a claim valid. Recycled content Contact-Sensitive Packaging: The Low Percentages With the Hard Supply Problem 30 percent for PET, 10 percent for other contact-sensitive plastics in 2030 - the lowest targets in Article 7 and the hardest to source, because food-contact safety law decides what may be recycled into them. Recycled content How Recycled Content Is Calculated: Units, Plastic Parts and Averages The arithmetic of Article 7: content measured on the plastic part of each unit, post-consumer feedstock only, with averaging and verification rules completed by implementing acts. What to build in your data now. Recycled content Mass Balance and Chemical Recycling: How Recycled Content Gets Attributed Chemical recycling turns waste plastic back into feedstock, but its output is mixed with virgin material. Mass-balance accounting decides how much recycled content a pack may claim. The models, the exclusions, and the audit trail. Recycled content Post-Consumer vs Pre-Consumer: Only One of Them Counts Article 7 counts recycled plastic recovered from post-consumer waste. Production offcuts and in-plant scrap - pre-consumer material - do not. The definitions, the boundary cases, and why the line exists. Recycled content Preparing for 2040: The Second Content Step, Planned From the First 50, 25, 65 and 65 percent: the 2040 targets roughly double the ask. Capacity mathematics, the review between the waves, and why the cheapest 2040 programme is the one designed into the 2030 build. Recycled content Recycled Content Beyond Plastic: Glass, Metal, Paper and Wood Article 7 mandates percentages only for plastic - because the other materials' content markets already work. How cullet, scrap and recovered fibre actually run, and why 'no mandate' does not mean 'no duties'. Recycled content Recycled Content Claims: What You May Say, and What Must Stand Behind It The voluntary recycled-content label, percentage claims on pack, and the substantiation discipline of green-claims law. Say exactly what the file supports, in the units the consumer understands. Recycled content Recycled Content Exemptions and Derogations: The Real List Parts under 5 percent, defined medical and pharmaceutical cases, compostable plastics and the supply-shortage derogation mechanism: Article 7's relief valves, and the discipline each one demands. Recycled content Sourcing Recycled Plastic: Supply, Premiums and Contracts That Hold Post-consumer feedstock is a contracted market with a structural premium and a 2030 crowd arriving. How supply is actually secured: grades, specifications, contract structures, and the make-or-buy decisions behind them.