---
title: PPWR
description: PPWR is the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40, which replaces the old packaging directive with directly applicable EU rules. It sets recyclability grades, minimum recycled-content targets, reuse goals and extended producer responsibility (EPR) for all packaging on the EU market.
canonical: "https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/ppwr"
locale: en
source: "https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/ppwr"
---

# PPWR

> PPWR is the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40, which replaces the old packaging directive with directly applicable EU rules. It sets recyclability grades, minimum recycled-content targets, reuse goals and extended producer responsibility (EPR) for all packaging on the EU market.

PPWR is the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40, which replaces the old packaging directive with directly applicable EU rules. It sets recyclability grades, minimum recycled-content targets, reuse goals and extended producer responsibility (EPR) for all packaging on the EU market.

Adopted as Regulation (EU) 2025/40 and published in early 2025, the PPWR moves packaging rules from a directive (which each member state transposed differently) to a single directly applicable regulation. Most of its substantive obligations apply from 12 August 2026, with several requirements — like recyclability performance grades A/B/C and minimum recycled-content thresholds for plastic packaging — phasing in on later dates fixed in the text.

For DPP work the PPWR matters because packaging data — material composition, recyclability grade, recycled-content share, reuse and separate-collection guidance — increasingly travels with the product rather than living in a separate compliance silo. Several of these fields overlap directly with what a Digital Product Passport already carries, so capturing them once and reusing them is the efficient path.

## FAQ

### Is the PPWR a regulation or a directive?

It is a regulation — (EU) 2025/40 — so it applies directly in every member state without national transposition, unlike the packaging directive it replaces. That removes the country-by-country differences manufacturers used to navigate.

### Does packaging get its own Digital Product Passport?

The PPWR sets its own labelling and information duties rather than mandating a DPP as such, but its data overlaps heavily with passport fields — recycled content, recyclability grade, material composition. In practice many manufacturers capture packaging data alongside product data so they satisfy both regimes from one source.

## Related terms

- [Recycled content](https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/recycled-content)
- [Digital Product Passport (DPP)](https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/digital-product-passport)
- [ESPR](https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/espr)
- [Economic operator](https://www.tracepass.eu/glossary/economic-operator)