Single-Use Plastic Directive ID: vote sets dangerous precedent for greenwashing around recycled content

Legitimising ‘chemical recycling’ will allow manufacturers to make unsubstantiated claims about how much recycled content their products actually contain, warns the environmental network Zero Waste Europe (ZWE). 

Brussels, 6 February 2026 – The European Commission’s implementing decision on the Single-Use Plastic Directive (SUPD), risks undermining the integrity of the definition of recycled content, due to the recognition of recovery technologies as recycling. The environmental network stresses that this decision sets a dangerous precedent that will most likely impact other key pieces of legislation such as the Packaging, Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), and the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation (ELVR). 

Lauriane Veillard, Chemical Recycling and Plastic-to-Fuels Policy Officer states: “While we appreciate the reduction of the proposal’s scope to PET bottles, we do not support rushing to adopt another accounting method, especially when this system will be subject to further discussions as part of the PPWR, which goes against the regulatory certainty.”

Zero Waste Europe strongly opposes the inclusion of a mass balance approach for accounting recycled content based on the ‘fuel-use exempt’ allocation rules, which would allow companies to claim and market products as made from recycled materials regardless of their true content. These rules are worsened by the ‘dual-use output’ concept, which grants even more flexibility in how to attribute the ‘recycled content’.  

Lauriane Veillard, Chemical Recycling and Plastic-to-Fuels Policy Officer states: “With the adoption of these allocation rules, decision-makers are legitimising greenwashing and rewarding non-transparent practices at a moment when we need more traceability to transition safely towards a circular economy. This approach will neither increase the use of recycled content nor improve circularity; only proportional allocation can deliver accordingly.”

Zero Waste Europe urges the European Commission to develop a stronger methodology as part of the Packaging, Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which focuses on more efficient technologies, such as mechanical recycling, that have less-energy intensive processes, and a more transparent accounting system. 

ENDS

Notes to the editor:

For more information about chemical recycling, mass balance and dual-use output, please see the links below: 

Reports: 

• Impacts of allocation rules on chemical recycling – consequences on the environment and maximum circularity of plastics
• ‘Dual-use output’ issues for accounting recycled plastic content

Infographics:  

• Recycled content in plastics – the mass balance approach
• Mass balance – time to play fair 

Press contacts: 

Ariane Osman, Communications Officer at Zero Waste Europe, [email protected], 

+32 471 96 55 93

Lauriane Veillard, Chemical Recycling and Plastic-to-Fuels Policy Officer at Zero Waste Europe, [email protected] 

About Zero Waste Europe:

Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) is the European network of communities, local leaders, experts, and change agents working towards a better use of resources and the elimination of waste in our society. We advocate for sustainable systems; for the redesign of our relationship with resources; and for a global shift towards environmental justice, accelerating a just transition towards zero waste for the benefit of people and the planet. www.zerowasteeurope.eu