[German] Packaging Act

The Packaging Act (VerpackG) governs the disposal of packaging.

The new Packaging Act (VerpackG) took effect on 1 January 2019. The Packaging Act supersedes the Packaging Ordinance (VerpackV). For this reason, the (German foundation) Stiftung Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister took up work to monitor and ensure licensing in compliance with the law.
Sellers placing products on the market are regarded as packaging producers.

All distributors of products are affected by the new Packaging Act. After all, everyone who sells products also places packaging on the market. Therefore, anyone who sells products is also regarded as a producer of packaging and must license the sales packaging placed on the market in accordance with the Packaging Act since 1 January 2019. All producers are therefore obliged to register with the Central Packaging Register Foundation in a test register and must also license their sales packaging with one of the dual systems. Objectives: Environmentally friendly recycling and fair cost distribution
The Central Packaging Register Foundation is to contribute to the improvement of packaging recycling and introduce standards for recycling-compliant design. The dual systems must report annually how they have promoted recyclable packaging and the use of recyclates and how much packaging they have recycled to high quality. In the process, ecologically advantageous packaging should be given more favourable treatment than in the past. Anyone who opts for ecologically advantageous packaging should benefit from this. Overall, more environmentally friendly recycling and a fair distribution of costs are key objectives of the new Packaging Act.