On September 20, 2022, the European Commission officially released the revised Food Contact Recycled Plastics Regulation-Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 on its website. This Regulation will supersede the previous Regulation (EC) No 282/2008 on recycled plastics, the new regulation will come into force on October 10, 2022.
Compared with the previous version of the recycled plastics regulations, the newly released regulations have established a completely different regulatory system, which is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. Clarify what is “Suitable technology”;
2. If it does not belong to the “suitable technology”, it should apply to the EU, and the product can be temporarily put on the market;
3. The regeneration process is subdivided, and the supervision of incoming materials is becoming more and more strict;
4. The EU will establish a new registration database, and the information will be more open and transparent.
- Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 came into force on 10 October 2022. At that time, applications for the production of recycled plastics that have been submitted but do not fall under the definition of “suitable recycling technology” will be deemed to be automatically terminated.
- Producers can still manufacture, sell and use products produced using this process until July 10, 2023. If you still want to produce the product after that, you need to apply for an evaluation of the new technology.
- Regarding the recycling processes of PET plastics that have previously been applied for and obtained evaluation opinions from EFSA, the European Commission will also make a decision on whether to approve the legal use of these processes in the EU as soon as possible.
Conditions of application of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616:
1. Putting recycled plastics intended to come into contact with food on the market;
2. Develop plastic recycling process, operate related processes and equipment;
3. Use recycled plastic materials and articles, or plastic materials and articles intended to be recycled, when in contact with food.
Requirements of recycled plastic materials and articles of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616:
1. Comply with the requirements of (EU) No 10/201 1 for plastic components and the requirements of chapters 2, 3 and 5 for migration levels and limits;
2. Produced by an appropriate recycling process (Annex 1), or a new recycling process that meets the requirements of Chapter IV of the Regulations.
Upon entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616:
1. The PET mechanical recycling process submitted before July 10, 2023 can continue to put recycled plastics on the market without authorization;
2. From July 10, 2023, only recycled plastics produced using an authorized new process or an appropriate recycling process can be placed on the market. The regulation lists two appropriate recycling technologies;
3. PET mechanical recycling, each individual process needs to be authorized;
4. Recycling from closed and controlled product cycles requires the use of a recycling program;
5. From October 10, 2024, quality assurance systems for collecting and pre-processing plastics will need to be certified by a third party.
Related article：https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32022R1616
Post time: Oct-28-2022
