The heart of progress in the fight against single-use plastics lies in the cooperation in the working groups.

You will find here the reports of the working groups.

The working groups are as follows:

• Group 1 – Reusability and Recyclability
• Group 2 – Responsible Use of Plastics
• Group 3 – Collection, Sorting, Recycling
• Group 4 – Use of Recycled Plastics
• Group 5 – Monitoring and reporting

1. Reusability and recyclability :

This WG aims to design all plastic packaging and single-use plastic products placed on the market to be reusable where possible and in any case recyclable by 2025.

Focus :

This working group also aims to agree consistency in guidelines to enable design for circularity with perspective to scale up across Europe.
There will be some natural cross-over with working groups 2 and 3 on responsible use of plastics and collection, sorting and recycling.

2. Responsible use of plastics

This WG aims to move towards a more responsible use of plastic packaging and single-use plastic products, aiming to reduce virgin plastic products and packaging by at least 20% (by weight) by 2025, with half of this reduction coming from an absolute reduction in plastics.

Focus :

Reusing plastics could have a considerable impact on plastics use for certain applications, in addition to other reduction efforts. The success of reduce and reuse models however depends on many factors in the entire value chain. The working group brings together these actors with the aim to come to better reuse and reduce models and perspectives for governments to develop the right incentives to promote those models.

3. Collection, sorting and recycling

This WG aims to increase the collection, sorting and recycling capacity by at least 25 percentage points by 2025 and reach a level that corresponds to market demand for recycled plastics.

Focus :

Sharing best practices that will enable growth in recycling collection capacity in such a way that plastic recyclates will be used in new products and packaging.

This working group provides the opportunity to share experiences, barriers and opportunities for improvement in waste shipment and sorting and recycling capacity.

4. Use of recycled plastics

This WG aims to increase the use of recycled plastics in new products and packaging by 2025, with plastics user companies achieving an average of at least 30% recycled plastics (by weight) in their product and packaging range.

Focus :

Sharing best practices that will enable growth in the use of recycled plastics in packaging. This could include food contact applications. Close contact will be held with the CPA working group.

5. Monitoring and reporting

This WG is involved in all targets

Focus :

Cross-cutting theme across all working groups. Coordination of the reporting required from the signatories. This working group will discuss other essential elements for monitoring against the targets in a harmonised framework.

Terms of Reference for the Working Groups

All signatories of the European Plastics Pact are invited to participate in the Working Groups. It is not mandatory to join any of the working groups, but if you choose to do so, there is an expectation that you will participate in the meetings and contribute actively to the working group’s objective(s). Members of the Working Group are expected to:

• Attend the meetings of the Working Group (minimum 4 per year) and where applicable Sprint Groups. Intermediate calls may be set up if required.

• Commit to participate regularly in the Working Group for at least one year.

• Provide expert input to ensure that activities and outputs are fit-for-purpose

• Deliver actions as voluntarily committed to at meetings

• Disseminate activities & outputs from the group to others in your organisation or network.