FEAD feedback to the Commission draft Implementing Regulation establishing EU-wide end-of-waste criteria for plastic waste

FEAD, the European Waste Management Association, welcomes the Commission’s efforts to establish EU-wide end-of-waste (EoW) criteria for plastic waste under Article 6 of the Waste Framework Directive. Harmonised criteria can play an important role in strengthening the EU internal market for recycled plastics, reducing administrative burden for operators, and improving trust in plastic recyclates as secondary raw materials.

FEAD has consistently supported the development of EU-wide EoW criteria, including through its response[1] to the JRC technical proposal published in 2024. The Commission’s draft Implementing Regulation reflects several improvements compared to the JRC’s proposal, and acknowledges the urgency of publishing the plastic EoW.

However, a number of key operational and market-related concerns remain unresolved. These risk limiting the practical usefulness of the EoW framework, excluding legitimate recycling outlets, and creating unnecessary complexity for recyclers without clear environmental benefits.

Complementarity with local and case-by-case end-of-waste criteria

FEAD underlines the importance of clearly specifying that existing local end-of-waste schemes, including case-by-case decisions adopted by competent authorities in accordance with Article 6 of the Waste Framework Directive, can complement the EU-wide EoW for applications that are not covered by its scope.

EU-wide end-of-waste criteria cannot realistically cover the full diversity of recycling processes, materials and applications that exist across Member States. Case-by-case end-of-waste decisions therefore remain essential to support local circular economy solutions and enable innovation where no EU-wide EoW criteria apply.

FEAD stresses that the introduction of EU-wide EoW criteria should not lead to a de facto limitation or phasing-out of these local and case-by-case EoW schemes applicable to complementary recycling pathways outside of the scope of the European EoW. On the contrary, both levels should coexist and reinforce each other, with EU-wide criteria providing a prevailing and harmonised framework for mature and widely traded material streams, while case-by-case EoW schemes continue to play a key role in fostering innovation and accommodating additional recycling pathways out of the scope of the EU EoW.

In addition, FEAD would welcome a ‘tolerance’ period at Member States level to allow operators that comply with national EoW  sufficient time to adapt to the EU-wide criteria, while taking into account the differing starting points and levels of maturity across the Union.

Foreign materials thresholds

Threshold level

FEAD welcomes the Commission’s decision to move away from the dual foreign-material thresholds proposed by the JRC and to establish a single threshold of <1.9% (moisture-free weight) for plastic recyclates obtaining EoW status. This single threshold improves legal clarity and supports the functioning of the EU internal market for recyclates by avoiding multiple quality regimes depending on destination.

However, FEAD still questions the level at which this threshold is set: there is a local market demand today for recycled plastics with a higher level of contamination than the proposed <1.9%. Additionally, the criterion 3.2 on product quality requires compliance with industry specifications or standards for the use of plastic recyclates, which already provide for possible foreign material thresholds depending on the end-use. Therefore, including an additional foreign material threshold of 1.9%, is not only redundant but will certainly lead to a reduction, rather than an increase, in the quantities of EoW plastics produced and used on the European market.

Therefore, the purity level should ideally not be set rigidly but rather be determined by market demand. With regard to purity requirements, recyclates and virgin materials must be treated equally in order to avoid placing recyclates at a disadvantage in the market. In particular, the impact of the foreign materials threshold on the market for plastic recyclates shall be thoroughly evaluated in the January 2029 assessment already foreseen in Article 6 of the Regulation.

Measurement after pelletisation

However, despite improvements on thresholds, the Commission draft retains the requirement that, where plastic undergoes thermal treatment to agglomerate or pelletise it, the content of foreign materials shall be measured at the latest stage of reprocessing before thermal treatment.

FEAD considers this requirement problematic since, in pelletisation, the extrusion process helps to filter a large quantity of impurities from the plastic output. These impurities should therefore no longer be considered foreign materials since they are removed and are not part of the final product. Therefore, the measuring point for the contamination from foreign materials can be set only after all refining treatments potentially included in thermal treatment have already been carried out (e.g. filtration, dust aspiration, further metal removal, sieving, material homogenization, etc.). Recyclers should be able to consider the quantity of foreign materials removed in the extrusion step by direct measurement on final product or by using an abatement ratio specified in the extrusion characteristics or computed based on operational data.

Additionally, commercial specifications, customer acceptance and quality controls are usually based on the final marketed material. An EoW criteria based on an intermediate stage that no longer exists once pelletisation has taken place would create a disconnect between regulatory compliance and market reality. If the recycled plastic is sold in pellet form, the EoW status is acquired when the plastic output reaches the pellet form, and foreign material must be measured at this stage. FEAD therefore reiterates that compliance with foreign-material thresholds should be assessed on the final recycled plastic placed on the market.

Export-related requirements

The Commission draft also introduces an additional requirement whereby plastic recyclates intended for export outside the EU must consist of a single thermoplastic polymer, with a limited exception for PE/PP/PET mixtures. FEAD understands that this measure stems from a will to avoid circumvention of the Waste Shipment Regulation.

However, adding destination-specific conditions to EoW status creates additional traceability and compliance burdens for recyclers, without necessarily improving environmental outcomes. Indeed, EoW criteria are primarily intended to support the EU internal market and export controls are already comprehensively addressed under the Waste Shipment Regulation. Additionally, it cannot be assumed that the European EoW is recognised in third countries, so the materials would have to comply with the provisions adopted in the final country of destination in order to be considered and shipped as products. Therefore, it is unnecessary to unilaterally decide on specific quality criteria for the exported plastics that would not be recognised by third countries.

Furthermore, it seems counterproductive to allow recyclers to produce a specific blend of recycled plastics for sale on the EU internal market, while also preventing them from exporting these products. Typically, recycled polystyrene (PS) from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is often blended with smaller quantities of ABS, since these polymers are hard to separate. The proposed export restriction would therefore prohibit the sale of recycled PS from WEEE to export markets, while allowing it to be sold within the EU. Such barrier to the market, placing recyclates at a disadvantage compared to virgin polymers and to imported recyclates (to which the obligation does not apply), is unfair and not acceptable.

FEAD therefore refuses that such export-specific criteria is embedded in end-of-waste rules rather than enforced through shipment legislation.

Reciprocity on imports

FEAD appreciates that the text appropriately identifies imports of plastic recyclates and sets out safeguards to ensure these imports comply with quality management system requirements, which must be audited by a conformity assessment body or environmental verifier. However, FEAD would like to see clarification that the quality management system of a third-country operator must be audited by a European assessment body or verifier, operating according to European accreditation and market surveillance rules relating to product marketing, to ensure reliable assessment of these operators.

Furthermore, FEAD stresses that plastic recyclates placed on the EU market, regardless of their origin, must meet the same end-of-waste criteria and product compliance requirements as those produced within the Union. Recycled plastic from a third country shall be  obtained from plastic waste that has been treated in each relevant installation in a manner equivalent to EU standards related to human health and environmental protection requirements under Union legislation, with compliance verified by a European independent third party within the framework of the quality management system audit.

Overly restrictive definition of permitted uses

The Commission draft maintains the approach already proposed by the JRC whereby EoW plastic recyclates must be used exclusively for the ‘manufacture of plastic products or articles containing plastic parts’. Any other use results in the loss of EoW status and requires the material to be handled again as waste.

FEAD considers this definition unnecessarily restrictive and not fully aligned with real-life recycling markets. In particular, it risks excluding legitimate material recycling applications such as the use of recycled plastics as additives in asphalt, applications in bitumen membranes or similar construction products and other material uses where plastic is incorporated into products without necessarily resulting in a discrete plastic article or plastic part. If these downstream industries are no longer permitted to use recycled plastics as inputs due to exclusion from the EoW scope, producers will have no choice but to switch to virgin raw materials and the materials intended for these applications would be diverted toward energy recovery, incineration, or landfill. This would undermine the EU’s ambition for a circular economy and conflict with the definition of recycling in the Waste Framework Directive, whereas ‘materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes’, and with the waste hierarchy.

While FEAD understands and supports the exclusion of energy recovery, fuel production and backfilling from EoW status, these exclusions should be addressed without unintentionally banning material recycling uses that contribute to circular economy objectives. In particular, given that the plastics products market is currently unable to absorb all available recycled materials, it is not advisable to exclude any alternative outlets.

FEAD reiterates its request to broaden the wording to cover ‘products containing plastics’, while clearly excluding energy recovery and other non-material uses.

Exclusion of some healthcare plastic waste as input material

The Commission draft maintains the exclusion of healthcare waste from eligible input materials, except for non-hazardous plastic healthcare waste that has been segregated at source. FEAD questions this approach, which appears inconsistent with the overall logic of the proposed EoW criteria and risks excluding plastic waste streams that could otherwise be safely and effectively recycled.

In particular, criteria 1.1, 2.3 and 3.1 of the draft Regulation are based on the principle that input materials may contain hazardous properties or substances, provided that the applied treatment processes are capable of removing those hazards and that the resulting output plastic complies with all applicable quality, safety and product legislation requirements. By contrast, criterion 1.2 introduces a categorical exclusion for healthcare waste, despite the fact that appropriate treatment processes could be put in place to address its inherent risks.

FEAD considers that the regulatory approach should be consistent: healthcare plastic waste should not be excluded a priori from the scope of the EoW criteria, as long as it can be properly treated to remove its hazardous properties and to produce a secondary raw material that complies with the EoW criteria and with relevant Union product legislation.

Moreover, FEAD notes that source separation of non-hazardous plastic healthcare waste is often not implemented in healthcare facilities due to practical constraints such as lack of space, time and operational capacity. As a result, the current exemption for source-separated non-hazardous healthcare plastics may prove difficult to apply in practice. At the same time, projects are already underway in several Member States, including Belgium[2], to safely recover plastics from mixed medical waste through dedicated treatment steps designed to remove potential pathogens. It must be noted that infectious healthcare waste can pose a real risk for waste management operators when not disposed of properly, therefore plastic fractions from such waste streams shall only be eligible for EoW status where collection and treatment are subject to specific and strictly controlled conditions.

Maintaining a blanket exclusion of some healthcare waste in the EoW criteria would risk undermining ongoing innovation and industry efforts to recycle all suitable plastic waste streams, without delivering clear additional protection for human health or the environment. Same approach shall be adopted for used absorbent hygiene product, that should not be excluded from the scope if they can be recycled safely[3]. Therefore, specific materials should not be categorically excluded from the input, provided that the reasons for classifying them as hazardous are eliminated during the recycling process. The allowable input should be designed with flexibility in mind, with the recyclability of the material serving as the guiding criterion.

Additional concerns

• In order to guarantee the environmental credibility and legal certainty of the Eu EoW, FEAD recommends specifying that only approved facilities authorized as waste managers may produce plastics eligible for EoW. Therefore, the definitions of ‘plastic recyclate’ and ‘producer’ in Article 2 shall be modified to include this notion of ‘authorised waste management facilities’ or ‘authorised operator’, and adjustment shall be made in the text to reflect this change.
• FEAD notes that the Commission draft refers to ‘thermoplastic’ polymers when defining the scope of the Regulation, without this term being explicitly defined in Union legislation. While the concept is well understood from a technical perspective, the absence of a legal definition may create uncertainty in interpretation and enforcement. If deemed necessary, FEAD would therefore support the inclusion of a clear definition of ‘thermoplastic’, complemented by a non-exhaustive list of examples, to ensure legal clarity and consistent application across Member States.
• FEAD notes that the draft Regulation limits recycling operations that intentionally alter polymer chains, with an exception for small increases in molecular weight. Greater clarity is needed to ensure that this provision does not unintentionally restrict standard mechanical recycling practices, such as the use of additives or the blending of recycled plastics to adjust molecular weight and achieve the technical characteristics required for specific applications. Clarifying this exception would help ensure that established industrial practices, which are compatible with circular economy objectives and necessary to access markets with high technical specifications, are not considered non-compliant.

Conclusions and recommendations

FEAD welcomes the Commission’s efforts to move forward with EU-wide EoW criteria for plastic waste and acknowledges the progress made compared to the JRC technical proposal. Nevertheless, FEAD considers that the current draft still falls short of delivering a fully workable and market-relevant framework and calls on the Commission to:

1. Clarify that case-by-case EoW will be able to complement EU-wide EoW for recycling pathways not falling in the scope
2. When measuring foreign-materials content in the event of pelletisation, account for the efficiency of the filtering steps.
3. Review the definition of permitted uses of plastic recyclates to avoid excluding legitimate material recycling applications.
4. Ensure that the EoW criteria facilitate the EU internal market for recyclates without introducing unnecessary export traceability steps.
5. Reconsider the blanket exclusion of healthcare plastic waste as input material.

Addressing these points would significantly improve the effectiveness, credibility and uptake of EU-wide EoW criteria for plastics, while supporting Europe’s recycling capacity and circular economy objectives.

[1] JRC technical proposal for EU-wide EoW criteria for plastic waste – FEAD

[2] Select4Care is a project financed by the open call Circular Care of the Flemish government. The objective is to develop a logistical scheme that will enable better collection and recycling of plastic medical waste. VinylPlus Med focusses on collection and recycling of PVC medical waste, and is already working with several hospitals in Belgium. High-quality PVC recyclate is used for the manufacturing of PVC wallpaper. 

[3] For example, the safe recycling of diapers does exist in Europe, including for the plastic components. See Diaper Recycling Europe: 100% recycling of diapers

FEAD is the European Waste Management Association, representing the private waste and resource management industry across Europe, including 21 national waste management federations and 3,000 waste management companies. Private waste management companies operate in 60% of municipal waste markets in Europe and in 75% of industrial and commercial waste. This means more than 500,000 local jobs, fuelling €5 billion of investments into the economy every year. For more information, please contact: info@fead.be