中文The European packaging industry has been told for years that it needs to use more recycled content. Now CEFLEX has done the math — and the gap between where the industry is and where regulations require it to be is bigger than most comfortable conversations acknowledge.
A new CEFLEX report published June 18, 2026, puts a concrete number on the problem: to meet EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) targets, Europe needs to adopt an additional 440,000 tons of post-consumer recyclate from flexible packaging every single year between now and 2035.
Every year. Not as a one-time target. As a sustained, annual increase.
What the Numbers Actually Mean
By 2030, the analysis projects that roughly 2.5 million tons of post-consumer recyclate derived from flexible packaging will be required. That number climbs to an estimated 5.9 million tons by 2035, when a 55% recycling rate target for all plastic packaging formats comes into force.
To understand the scale: the materials in question are primarily recycled polyethylene, polypropylene, and mixed polyolefins. These are the building blocks of everything from snack food pouches to medical packaging to the flexible films wrapped around your daily deliveries.
The challenge isn’t just about recycling more of this material — it’s about creating the downstream market infrastructure to actually use it. Recycled flexible packaging material has to end up somewhere. Packaging applications alone, CEFLEX notes, are “unlikely to absorb all the recycled material needed to support higher recycling rates.”
Beyond Packaging: Other Markets Must Step Up
CEFLEX identifies a wider set of secondary markets that could take up the slack: construction films, refuse sacks, transport packaging, and horticulture products. When these are factored in alongside packaging applications, the total potential demand for post-consumer recyclate could reach around 4.3 million tons by 2030.
That’s more hopeful, but it requires coordinated development across multiple industries simultaneously — industries that don’t necessarily have mandated targets pushing them in the same direction as packaging.
Arne Jost, external affairs director at CEFLEX, stated: “Meeting recycled content targets is not only about recycling more. It depends on whether that material can move into real applications, at the right quality and at scale.”
The Industry Implications
For packaging producers and converters, this report is a reality check. The regulatory timeline is real, the volumes required are substantial, and the infrastructure to meet them doesn’t fully exist yet. Companies that are waiting to see how enforcement plays out before making sourcing changes are likely to find themselves competing for a limited supply of compliant material.
For brand owners, the pressure is equally direct. Recycled content commitments increasingly require proof of purchase and traceability — which means supplier relationships built around conventional virgin material will need to evolve.
The gap between where the industry is and where PPWR requires it to be isn’t a reason to panic. But 440,000 additional tons per year doesn’t close itself.
Source: Labels & Labeling
