How can companies increase the visibility of their packaging after use? In this article, Packaging Data Hub directors Sarah Perreard (co-CEO of Earth Action) and Yoni Shiran (partner at Systemiq) describe how gaps in packaging data can shape real decisions, with additional contributions from Amcor and Nestlé.
As companies redesign packaging for new regulations and invest in waste systems around the world, one constraint keeps emerging: limited visibility into what happens to packaging after use.
Advancements in packaging are often framed in terms of innovation, regulation or corporate sustainability ambition. In practice, progress frequently depends on something more fundamental: understanding what happens to packaging after use.
Decisions about redesigning packaging formats, preparing for tightening regulation or investing in waste infrastructure all depend on understanding how materials perform once they enter real waste management systems. Without clear visibility into collection, sorting and recycling outcomes, companies struggle to prioritize packaging formats and direct investment across markets.
At the Sustainable Packaging Innovation Forum, Packaging Data Hub hosted a workshop exploring two perspectives: preparing packaging portfolios for regulatory compliance in Europe and deciding whether to support projects on waste management infrastructure development.
Preparing packaging portfolios for compliance
For packaging manufacturers and their customers in Europe, regulatory timelines are becoming a powerful driver of packaging redesign. The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will require many formats to meet stricter recyclability criteria in the coming years. For companies designing packaging today, this means anticipating how materials will perform in real waste systems.
Amcor, which has committed to making its packaging portfolio recyclable and increasing the use of post-consumer recycled content (PCR), is already navigating this transition. A key challenge is understanding how packaging formats interact with downstream sorting and recycling systems at a level of granularity that can support practical design decisions.
Lucie Charbonnel, Sustainability Director at Amcor where she leads the circularity and decarbonisation agenda for flexibles in Europe, shared her perspective: “There are many myths about the recyclability of different formats, which we need more granular data to be able to challenge. This data often doesn’t exist. One example we’ve been able to clarify through research projects with the CEFLEX coalition is that flexible PP can indeed be recycled and is already recycled in practice in some countries.”
This lack of granular and consistent end-of-life data also makes it harder for companies to distinguish between packaging formats that are designed for recyclability and those that are actually recycled in practice across different markets. Lucie therefore welcomes the newly published CEN Design for Recycling guidelines for plastic packaging (EN 18120) which establish an official reference for desired designs for both flexible PE and flexible PP recycling streams.
Yet experience from other CEFLEX projects shows that the link between packaging choice and performance in the waste management system is often unclear. In the Roflex pilot project that is testing flexible plastic packaging formats in Romania, the sorting stage in its current state (manual sorting) emerged as a major bottleneck, with significant quantities of recyclable material at present ending up in residual waste streams rather than being captured for recycling.
These findings show that packaging performance depends not only on design but also on the operational realities of local waste systems. Flexible polyethylene and polypropylene packaging showed positive financial value for waste operators when successfully recovered, while more complex multi-material flexible formats were harder to process, required additional handling costs, and were therefore economically more challenging.
Better visibility into sorting performance can inform both packaging design and investment in waste infrastructure.
For companies preparing their portfolios for upcoming regulatory requirements, this creates a dual challenge: packaging must be designed for recyclability, while waste systems must evolve to capture those materials effectively. Without clearer data on sorting performance and system outcomes, companies risk redesigning packaging without achieving the intended recycling results – potentially incurring higher EPR fees or additional redesign costs later on.
Investing in better systems where infrastructure is still emerging
While regulatory pressure is shaping decisions in Europe, companies operating globally face a different challenge. In many markets, waste management infrastructure is still developing, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes are not yet fully mature. The question is not how to optimize existing systems, but how to prioritise support to develop them.
Nestlé approaches this challenge through a data-driven investment strategy that identifies where interventions in waste systems can have the greatest impact.
“We’ve looked at countries where formal waste management systems are foreseen to be limited or absent over the long-term horizon, prioritized where the end-of-life data shows significant packaging waste leakage, finally focusing our recycling and recovery projects where we have the biggest impact,” explained Marco Volpi, Global Packaging Data Lead at Nestlé, who leads packaging sustainability reporting and data strategy.
In practice, this can mean supporting the development of collection systems, strengthening sorting or recycling capacity, or working with local partners to improve emerging waste management infrastructure.
However, companies working across these markets often face significant end-of-life data limitations. High-level national data can help identify where problems exist, but it is often not granular enough to assess how specific interventions are performing on the ground. Data on waste systems is also often several years old by the time it becomes available.
This is what makes end-of-life data particularly important: it allows companies to move beyond broad assumptions and identify where packaging is most likely to leak from the system, where infrastructure gaps are most acute and where targeted intervention is most likely to matter.
An example comes from Nestlé’s work in Ecuador to identify where waste system interventions could be most effective over time. By combining end-of-life leakage data with its operational footprint and applying a forward-looking view of where infrastructure improvements or mature EPR systems were unlikely to emerge in the next three to five years, it allowed the company to narrow its focus to markets where support would be most needed.
“More frequent updates on end-of-life data are key so we can demonstrate positive returns on projects like this,” explained Volpi.
Without timely and comparable information on collection, sorting and recycling performance, it becomes harder to understand whether interventions are delivering the intended outcomes. This uncertainty can slow investment decisions and make it harder to direct funding toward the interventions that will have the greatest impact. As a result, companies may struggle to prioritize effective investment, demonstrate impact, or scale effective solutions across markets.
Although these challenges arise in different contexts, they point to the same underlying constraint.
A shared constraint across different contexts
These examples reflect very different operating environments. In Europe, companies are preparing packaging portfolios for regulatory compliance while trying to ensure that materials perform effectively within existing waste systems. In emerging markets, the challenge is identifying where investment can help build those systems in the first place.
Yet both situations depend on the same underlying question: what actually happens to packaging once it enters the waste stream?
When companies lack clear answers, decision making becomes more complex. Teams often need to reconcile multiple datasets, rely on assumptions, or commission bespoke analysis to fill information gaps. This process can be time-consuming and costly, particularly for global companies trying to maintain comparable data across dozens of markets - while still leaving uncertainty about real-world outcomes.
Improving visibility into collection, sorting and recycling performance would help address these challenges. More comparable and timely data would allow companies to evaluate packaging design choices, prioritize infrastructure investment and measure the results of interventions with greater confidence.
As circular packaging ambitions continue to grow, strengthening the data foundation behind these decisions will become increasingly important - not only to support better environmental outcomes, but also to reduce the cost and complexity of decision-making across global packaging portfolios. Initiatives such as the Packaging Data Hub are beginning to explore how shared, harmonized data infrastructure are helping make end-of-life packaging data more accessible, comparable and transparent across markets.
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