EA/SEPA Packaging Guidance Notes

The agencies’ interpretation of packaging'

Introduction

The EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste only gives general guidance on what is and what is not packaging.

It is essential that a standard interpretation of the definition of 'packaging' exists for Great Britain so that the Environment Agency and Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) can assess obligations consistently under the Regulations.

The agencies, in developing principles that apply the definition of packaging, must have regard to the common understanding of what is and what is not packaging.

They must also have regard to the objective of sustainability and to the expressed purpose of the EC Directive to 'reduce the overall volume of packaging waste'.

The information below includes a summary of items where agreement on packaging has been reached by Member States.

The notes are the agencies’ views on how obligated producers (and Compliance Schemes) should assess the items of packaging and packaging materials they are responsible for when compiling records and calculating recovery and recycling obligations.

This information replaces the first edition issued by the Environment Agency and SEPA in July 1997. It reflects the constructive proposals from a number of packaging chain interests and the agencies’ experience of interpreting and enforcing the regulations.

The information does not cover exemptions from the legislation, matters such as evidence, or calculation of obligations (which will depend on criteria such as ownership and the nature of supply).

The European Dimension

The Article 21 Committee helps the European Commission when applying the provisions of the Packaging Directive. All Member States are represented on the Committee; the UK by the Department of Trade and Industry.

A list of items with agreed packaging status has been published by the Committee. The list (which is subject to change) is intended to promote understanding. Some examples from the document are:

Packaging

Boxes for watchmaker’s products
Cigarette cartons
Dosage delivery caps
Film overwrap around a CD case
Paper or plastic carrier bags designed / aimed for being filled at point of sale
Mascara brush which forms part of the container closure
Sweet boxes
Toy boxes for consumable toys
Charcoal sacks
Paint tins
Match boxes
Sticky labels attached to another packaging item
Accessory packaging hung directly on or attached to the product

Not packaging

Toy boxes for durable toys
Flower pots intended to stay with the plant throughout its life
Ink cartridges
Tool boxes
First aid boxes
Boxes for contact lenses
Tea bags
Sausage skins
Stirrers
Blood bags
Urine bags

Please note that these lists have no statutory force in the UK. Whether or not these items are obligated packaging in the UK will depend on whether they satisfy the other criteria for packaging given in the regulations (e.g. ownership, nature of supply, etc).

Interpretation tests

notes on steps A to F in the flow chart

Step A – Identify the sales unit

Interpretation begins with the 'sales unit'; this is the product and its packaging. The purpose of Step A is to identify it. For example, a silver spoon, preserves, jars, caps, labels, plastic sleeve, and price label all comprise the 'sales unit' of a presentation pack of preserves with serving spoon.

Step B – Remove the product

The product (or products) is to be used or consumed. In the example given in Step A, this is the preserves and the spoon.

Some items are regarded by the agencies as products in their own right although the boxes, bags, etc they come in are packaging; examples include tea bags, pencils, fire extinguishers, 35mm film cassettes and toner cartridges.

Step C – Durable packaging for durable products

Durable products that cannot be used up (or consumed) may require durable packaging for long-term storage. An item that provides such long-term storage for a durable product is not regarded as obligated packaging by the agencies.

The Article 21 Committee considers that a durable item is one that a majority of consumers use for longer than five years, and is intended for repeated use and not for disposal after the first use.

Preserves are consumable so no part of the 'sales unit' for them can be for long-term storage. Power tools on the other hand are durable products, so it is reasonable to assume their carrying cases as long-term storage. This also applies to durable carrying cases or moulded containers designed to last the lifetime of durable items such as spectacles, laptop computers, electric razors, cutlery, and cameras.

Step D – The 'Function Test'

Regulation 2 states that 'packaging' means 'all products made of any materials of any nature to be used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery and resentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods....'.

The agencies consider that a given item of packaging does not to perform all of these functions, one function is sufficient.

Definitions of these specific functions have been adapted according to the purpose of the Packaging Directive:

'containment' is the act or process of restraining or enclosing e.g. drums and cans;
'protection' means the defence from harm, e.g. bubble wrap;
'handling' means facilitating movement, e.g. carpet cores;
'delivery' is the conveyance of the product(s) to the final user or consumer;

and

'presentation' means to exhibit or display the product(s), which may include attracting attention to them e.g. a label, or a brightly coloured box containing an Easter egg.

Step E – The 'Purposes Test'

Regulation 2 sets out a second test. For part of a 'sales unit' to be packaging,

it must also be:

(a) sales packaging or primary packaging, that is to say packaging conceived so as to constitute a sales unit to the final user or consumer at the point of purchase;
(b) grouped packaging or secondary packaging, that is to say packaging conceived so as to constitute at the point of purchase a grouping of a certain number of sales units whether the latter is sold as such to the final user or consumer or whether it serves only as a means to replenish the shelves at the point of sale; it can be removed from the product without affecting its characteristics;
(c) transport packaging or tertiary packaging, that is to say packaging conceived so as to facilitate handling and transport of a number of sales units or grouped packs in order to prevent physical handling and transport damage; for the purposes of these

Regulations transport packaging does not include road, rail, ship and air containers.

An important word found in the descriptions of primary, secondary and tertiary packaging is 'conceived'.

For an item to be primary, secondary or tertiary packaging it does not have to have been conceived as such at the manufacturing stage, but at any stage.

Once it passes the Function Test and the Purpose Test, it is deemed to have been packaging throughout the chain.

This highlights the need for information to be passed between activities in the packaging chain.

Step F

All items which have reached this point in the flow diagram are considered to be packaging for the purposes of the regulations.

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