Happy New Year! The Packaging Europe editorial team kicks off 2026 with its predictions for the year ahead – covering regulation, new innovations, the financial health of the packaging industry, reusable packaging, and much more.
“Recycling facilities have been closing throughout Europe”: Victoria Hattersley, Senior Writer
Despite their being the least likely category of packaging to be collected and recycled, the use of flexibles will only continue to increase. They are, after all, convenient, lightweight and easy to transport.
In the months and years to come we can expect to see a gradual diversification in the kinds of recycling technologies used to create a robust circular economy for flexibles. These will include delamination, deinking, dissolution and more (learn more from this report by CELFEX). The focus on advanced, granular sorting technologies will also continue, and to this end we will be watching the progress of the Holy Grail project into 2026 and beyond.
One of the major challenges, looking ahead, will be to increase recycling capacity for flexibles to meet demand for recyclate – a challenge which is compounded by the fact that recycling facilities have been closing throughout Europe in the past year.
Other factors to keep an eye on in terms of boosting circular flexibles include the need to ringfence EPR, so that fees collected from these schemes can be put back into funding sorting and collection infrastructure; and ensuring flexible recyclate can meet food contact standards.
“Competitiveness and sustainability continue to clash”: Fin Slater, Digital Content Manager
The PPWR saga is over… Or is it?
After years of speculation, multiple rounds of intense discussions, and fierce industry feedback, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation was officially approved on the 11th of February 2025 – with its stipulations set to kick in in August of this year.
The core objectives of this landmark regulation mostly pertain to harmonising packaging rules across the bloc, reducing levels of packaging waste, and boosting the recyclability of packaging.
That was meant to be the end of the story. However, late last year, rumours began to swirl regarding a potential rehashing of central PPWR stipulations as part of the upcoming Environmental Simplification Package (Omnibus).
In response to this, a group of organisations from across the packaging value chain urged the EU to plough ahead with the existing version of the Regulation, arguing that “reopening the PPWR, even for minor amendments, would create crippling uncertainty.”
The rumours eventually proved correct, when simplification measures introduced under the European Commission’s Environmental Omnibus included proposed exemptions from the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation’s reuse targets, an evaluation of the Single-Use Plastic Directive’s success, and reduced scope and postponed deadlines for EU reporting requirements.
In light of this, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if further changes to the text appeared in 2026. While some might argue that it is encouraging to see legislators being flexible and reacting positively to industry feedback, others say that a further watering-down of the text would render the PPWR essentially useless.
Competitiveness and sustainability continue to clash – it remains unclear who the winner of this battle will be.
“A promising alternative on the marketplace”: Libby Munford, Editor
It would be remiss not to include bio-based materials off the back of Zafree Paper’s leading industry recognition - as the Sustainability Awards 2025 recipient of the Overall Winner award and Commercialized Renewable Materials award.
With its tree-free packaging, made from agricultural waste such as banana stems, in collaboration with the 100+ Accelerator and AB InBev, Zafree made history as the first company from Africa to win.
Founder and CEO, Bethlehem Dejane, underlines that: “this reflects that innovation can come from anywhere and have global relevance. Real change has to start with the materials we choose, and where they come from.”
Bio-based materials have long thrown their hat into the ring when it comes to offering a promising alternative on the marketplace. This field has generally been perceived as a ‘niche’ alternative, due to ongoing challenges such as limited scale, and flaws in functionality. However, innovation in this area is increasingly closing the gaps.
It’s also clear that the Commission is focused on providing rules to ensure that bio-based packaging originates from sustainable sources and does not directly lead to environmental issues – such as biodiversity loss and does not compete with food production.
I fully expect to see, over the next decade, supported by PPWR regulation and ever-increasing sustainability commitments, innovation in this field becoming more mainstream.
“Compromise is starting to seem impossible”: Emma Liggins, Journalist
Three years after the world agreed to develop a legally binding treaty and tackle the plastic waste crisis at UNEA-5, negotiations lumber on. Despite original plans to complete the text by the fifth International Negotiation Committee in late 2024, we still haven’t reached a consensus.
A draft treaty was revealed partway through the sixth round of discussions back in August, but it faced criticism for its largely voluntary approach and the absence of a cap on plastic pollution. Its subsequent revision was also widely rejected, and another round of discussions drew to a close with little to show for it.
Compromise is starting to seem impossible as fundamental disagreements stall the process. Proposed bans, phase-outs and restrictions clash with the interests of countries with thriving petrochemical industries; the division of finances between developed and developing countries remains controversial; and the degree to which any compulsory measures would override sovereignty is still being debated.
As Packaging Europe continues to track the Treaty’s progress, I predict that negotiators will keep doubling down on their individual viewpoints – and that its global approach will eventually become regional, especially as the geopolitical landscape becomes increasingly divided. So-called ‘high-ambition’ countries will form a coalition of the willing and hit the ground running, while those with limited interest will continue with business as usual; it might be the only way to break free from the stasis and make any headway.
“The journey towards reuse is easily underestimated’: Elisabeth Skoda, Editor at Large
Reusable packaging has gained some traction in 2025, and I look forward to seeing further progress in 2026, despite many challenges remaining.
In November last year, Lisbon rolled rolling out its city-wide reusable cup system, powered by TOMRA’s automated return machines with the aim of avoiding ‘millions’ of single-use cups annually.
In September, Loop announced that its reuse platform reached commercial scale in France in collaboration with major supermarket chain Carrefour and a coalition of brands and retailers, following pilots that enjoyed mixed successes in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Japan.
The above are just a couple of examples that raise hopes of reusable packaging getting closer to reaching the mainstream in hospitality and retail. Setting up a working reusable packaging system requires investment and strong collaboration between packaging and technology providers, retailers, vendors and municipalities.
At the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht last November, Eunomia’s Tom Donen reminded us that the journey towards reuse is easily underestimated, and that a “completely new ecosystem” of packaging was needed.
“It took us 50 years or more to implement the dominant single-use system. We need to shift back to that kind of scale for reuse systems. We have proof that they work, but now we need the same kind of effort and investment into optimizing reuse and creating a real infrastructure.”
“All too many businesses have been slow to react to mandatory adaptations”: Tim Sykes, Brand Director
There’s ever greater pressure to deliver on legal environmental obligations in a financially sustainable way - and for me this challenge will be perhaps the key theme for the packaging value chain in 2026.
All too many businesses have been slow to react to mandatory adaptations with deadlines fast approaching. Meanwhile, green differentiation is yielding reducing returns for some early adopters, as sustainability becomes standard. Both trends translate to an urgent demand for cost-competitive solutions, and for robust business cases that enable packaging to invest in next generation formats with confidence.
These will be overriding themes of this year’s Sustainable Packaging Summit (10-12 November, Utrecht), as the international leaders of packaging and FMCG assemble for Europe’s biggest packaging sustainability event.
“We will see more innovation”: Frances Butler, Journalist
2025 saw increased uptake and scaling of fibre-based bottles and caps, from Frugalpac’s paper wine bottles hitting the shelves in major US retailer Target to Scandinavian company Great Earth partnering with Blue OceanClosures to implement paper caps for all its supplement products. Major players in the paper bottle space have been scaling up including Paboco, Pulpex, and The Bottle Collective - and manufacturers have been experimenting with linings, coatings and barrier technologies to work alongside the paper components.
Many current paper bottles still contain some plastic components, which can present hurdles when it comes to recycling, but companies have been taking steps to reduce this. At 2025’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, NBCo presented its ‘disappearing’ fibre-based bottle as a replacement for conventional plastic bottles, said to be 90-99% recyclable in existing paper streams. Zipform Packaging unveiled a bottle made with 95% wood-based fibre and over 50% post-consumer recycled content in April, replacing the conventional plastic liner with a moisture- and oxygen-resistant barrier layer to improve recyclability.
Looking to 2026, we can expect to see continued scaling up of both bottles and caps in the beverage sectors, and possibly increased uptake of bottles in the personal care sector for products such as shampoo. It’s hard to say whether fibre-based screw cap uptake will increase, as some companies have opted to remove them altogether in an attempt to reduce plastic and CO2 emissions – but it’s likely we will see more innovation in barrier coatings and biodegradable products.
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The ‘complex reality’ of reusable packaging in Europe
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