Blog · Policy
PPWR and SUP: what operators should be doing now.
The EU packaging rules are tightening. Two regulations matter for venues. Here is what they actually require, what they don't, and what to do in the next 12 months.
The EU packaging rules are tightening. Two regulations matter for venues. Here is what they actually require, what they don't, and what to do in the next 12 months.
Two pieces of European packaging regulation are about to reshape how venues, festivals, and food service operations buy and dispose of single-use items: the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUP) and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The first is already binding. The second is moving into effect, and the implementation period is shorter than most operators realise.
Here is what each of these actually requires, what it doesn't, and what a venue operator should be doing in the next 12 months.
The Single-Use Plastics Directive came into force in 2019, with member-state transposition through 2021. It does two things at venue scale. First, it bans specific single-use plastic items where alternatives are available: certain cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, expanded-polystyrene containers. Second, it requires extended producer responsibility (EPR) for the items it doesn't ban: producers pay for the cost of collection and end-of-life management.
If you operate in Denmark or any other EU member state, this is already operational. The question now is whether your venue has implemented it through substitution (replacing with alternatives such as paper, bio-compostable PLA, or reusable) or through workaround (still using plastic but classified differently). The first is the spirit of the directive. The second is what regulators are now looking at more closely.
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation is the bigger move. It replaces the older Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive with a regulation, meaning it applies directly across the EU without member-state transposition. The headline goals:
For a venue, the part that bites first is the deposit-return scheme requirement and the EPR eco-modulation. The cost of single-use plastic goes up. The cost of properly disposed bio-compostable alternatives may go down. Compostable items that demonstrably enter an industrial composting stream (like the GRØNBLÅ closed-loop system) should benefit from eco-modulated fees that reflect their actual end-of-life path.
PPWR is also the regulation that defines what counts as "recyclable" or "compostable" for legal purposes. Marketing language is no longer enough. A claim that an item is "compostable" needs to be backed by EN 13432 certification and a route to an industrial composting facility that will actually process it. Without that, the claim fails the regulation. Operators using "compostable" alternatives that don't have a real disposal pipeline will be in scope of greenwashing enforcement, not in the safe harbour.
Three things, in order:
These regulations are not about punishment. They are about closing the loop in legislation that has been open for thirty years. Operators that built closed-loop systems voluntarily (Parken, with us, since 2024) are now the reference case for what compliance looks like in practice. Operators that waited will spend the next 18 months catching up. The transition window is real, but it is not generous.
If you want to walk through how PPWR maps to a specific venue or operation, we are happy to do it. We track the regulation closely and operate inside its direction of travel.
If you operate a venue and any of this is on your roadmap, we'd like to hear what you're up against. Two business days to a response.