What is the PPWR and who does it affect?
The PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40) is the EU's new packaging law. It entered into force in February 2025 and becomes binding as of August 12, 2026. Unlike a directive, it doesn't need to be transposed into national law first. As a regulation, it applies directly and uniformly across all EU member states. (See also the European Commission's overview.)
Who's affected?
The PPWR applies to all packaging, regardless of material, and to all packaging waste regardless of where it's generated, whether in industry, manufacturing, retail, distribution, administration, services, or private households. In practice, virtually every company that packages, places, or handles packaged products on the EU market needs to engage with the new requirements, from material reduction to recyclability to recycled content.
What is the mandatory EU recycled content target for plastics packaging?
Starting January 1, 2030, the PPWR requires minimum shares of recycled content, sourced from post-consumer plastic waste, calculated as an average per manufacturing plant per year. The exact target depends on the packaging type: 30 percent for PET-based contact-sensitive packaging, 10 percent for contact-sensitive packaging made of other plastics, 30 percent for single-use plastic beverage bottles, and 35 percent for all other plastic packaging. These targets rise further from January 1, 2040: to 50 percent for PET-based contact-sensitive packaging, 25 percent for other contact-sensitive packaging, and 65 percent for single-use beverage bottles and all other plastic packaging (see Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Article 7).
Does the US Have an Equivalent to the PPWR?
The United States has no single federal equivalent to the PPWR. Instead, extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging is being introduced state by state. As of 2026, seven states, including Oregon, Colorado, California, and Maine, have enacted their own EPR packaging laws, each with different rules, deadlines, and fees. The result is a far more fragmented picture than the EU's unified approach.
We spoke with Sven Engelmann, VP of Technology at Kiefel, about what this means in practice for a machine manufacturer.
How do you see the PPWR fitting into the broader EU regulatory landscape, and where exactly does Kiefel come in?
Sven Engelmann: As a manufacturer of production lines for packaging, we take two approaches to sustainability. One is the machinery and tooling technology itself, reducing energy, air, and water consumption. The other is packaging development, whether in polymer or fiber, where we advise customers on what counts as sustainable today and how that connects to the PPWR.
Sven Engelmann: At the top, for us as Europeans, sits the European Green Deal, the EU's overarching regulatory framework. Below that comes the Circular Economy Action Plan, and below that, the PPWR itself. At the foundation of that structure is what we actually deliver for our customers and theirs: recyclability, the ability to use recycled content, and material reduction. No other processing method delivers that in the polymer space as well as thermoforming does.
It's not just about reducing material weight. It's about designing packaging that ships as little empty space as possible. A good example is the returnable glass jar: it feels sustainable, but on the return trip you're essentially shipping heavily packaged air back to the dairy, then washing the jar, which uses water again. That's why we need a holistic view: saving energy on the lines, saving air used for forming, saving water in cooling, and making sure the recycling loop itself doesn't consume a disproportionate amount of resources.
You mentioned a phase of "plastic bashing" a few years back. How has the conversation around plastic packaging changed since then?
Sven Engelmann: Six or seven years ago, it was genuinely difficult. Plastic was seen as categorically bad, and everything else, fiber, glass, aluminum, was seen as good. That's shifted since then and become more fact-based. Today we can talk about plastic packaging on a more reasonable level than we could a few years ago.
Why is thermoforming, in your view, particularly well suited to meeting the PPWR's requirements around recycled content and material reduction?
Sven Engelmann: Thermoforming has always been a material-saving process at its core. That's rooted in the nature of the technology, working with thermoplastics that are inherently reprocessable. We've had customers for decades who process recycled material for cost reasons, plant pots being one example. Those customers are already experienced working with recycled content; thermoforming is very forgiving in that respect. Now that regulation calls for post-consumer recycled content rather than post-industrial recycled content, that's a shift for many of our customers, but not unfamiliar territory.
Another advantage is thin-wall capability. When it comes to thin-wall packaging, thermoforming outperforms injection molding, and thinner walls automatically mean less material.
In the polymer space, our circular economy focus is mainly on PP and PET. Roughly 40 percent of applications are PET, another 40 percent PP, about 15 percent polystyrene, and the remaining 5 percent bio-based plastics. PET has had functioning closed-loop systems from the bottle sector for more than 25 years, and thermoforming benefits from that too.
You mentioned that 5 percent share of bio-based plastics. Can those actually be composted at home, or only industrially, and where are they used globally?
Sven Engelmann: Both exist: there are industrially compostable bioplastics, and there are ones you can compost at home. For the industrial ones, the biggest obstacle is often not technical feasibility but timing. Bioplastics typically need a few extra weeks to break down in industrial composting, which doesn't always fit existing cycles. Still, that's a far cry from the often-cited 1,000 years it takes for polypropylene to degrade.
Globally, bioplastics are used mainly where there's no functioning waste management system in place; that's where they're a genuinely useful alternative. In the German market, bioplastics generally have a harder time gaining traction.
Is the shift toward more recyclable, material-reduced packaging a global pattern, or does it vary sharply by market?
Sven Engelmann: It varies, because packaging always serves multiple purposes, and the most important one is protecting the product. Nothing is less sustainable, in the end, than packaging that fails to get the product to the consumer intact or lets it spoil. Some regions place a premium on the product arriving truly intact; others place more weight on the packaging appearing sustainable. The German-speaking market, where food is comparatively inexpensive, tends more toward the latter in some cases.
A good example of successful packaging redesign is the toothbrush. It used to need a clear PET blister so shoppers could see the product, or it wouldn't sell. Today, a mono-material fiber pack that goes straight into paper recycling is, for many consumers, the more convincing choice.
Which three forces are shaping the packaging industry most right now, and how do they interact?
Sven Engelmann: For me, price always comes first. Roughly 70 percent of a package's cost is material, with the rest split between machinery, tooling, energy, water, air, and labor. That's exactly why it matters that our lines use less energy, water, and air than other processes: it has a direct impact on cost.
Regulation comes second, and even within the EU it isn't interpreted entirely uniformly. Third is societal will, which in turn feeds back into regulation. After all, as a society we also decide who governs and how things get regulated. Public opinion can spread very quickly today, and it can have an outsized effect just as fast.
Do you see regulation as more of a brake or an accelerator for innovation?
Sven Engelmann: What I'd like to see is technology-neutral regulation. I fully support the European Green Deal's goal of Europe becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, and I'm convinced we can get there. Achieving that requires regulation. But it needs to be more technology-neutral than it currently is. Right now, in some places it intervenes so heavily that I'm not sure we'll actually reach that goal in its current form.
Do you see convergence in global regulation, or does the pressure to act remain fragmented by market?
Sven Engelmann: It's more similar than people think. China is an interesting example. While Europe was still deep in the general debate over whether plastic was good or bad, Chinese manufacturers had already adopted European recycling technology and deployed it at scale, in megacities like the greater Shanghai area, home to roughly 120 million people, more than the entire German-speaking region. They also have very strict regulation there, with clear consequences for individuals.
Where there's no functioning waste management system, other approaches like biodegradable materials tend to be used instead. But at its core, I do see a global pattern: the pressure to keep resources in the loop is growing everywhere. Only the starting point and the regulatory path there differ by region.
Looking five years ahead, how does the role of a machine manufacturer change in a market increasingly driven by legislation rather than customer demand alone?
Sven Engelmann: I think we'll see consolidation among equipment manufacturers, similar to what we're already seeing among packaging converters. In that environment, we see ourselves as a European supplier with a global footprint, well positioned to meet both cost pressure and growing regulatory demands. Not least because the broader goal of Europe becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 will continue to shape our development direction long-term.