The European Parliament has approved the revised and final text of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which will enter into force 18 months after its publication in January 2025. This text establishes new definitions and legal obligations to consider in respect to bioplastics, their biodegradability and their compostability. We highlight two of them:

1.- The Commission must legislate in order to seek to promote the use of bioplastics in packaging, with the purpose of enabling their use to replace post-consumer recycled food contact material when this is not available in sufficient quantity to meet the objectives of minimum composition of recycled plastic.

2.- There are new objectives for the minimum percentage of recycled plastic in the composition of non-compostable plastic packaging. Therefore, packaging made with compostable materials is exempt from these minimum percentage targets for recycled plastic in its composition, which in its final period from 2040 on, will reach between 25% and 65% in weight depending on its composition and use.

This Regulation will be mandatory in all EU countries.