Articles · 2026-09-14
Six countries, six ways of counting the same packaging
Germany counts material groups, France counts UVC, the Netherlands counts the unit a consumer throws away. The kilograms are the easy part.
Every national register asks for a number. We assumed the number was kilograms. Then we read six of them properly, and the unit changes at almost every border.
Germany counts material groups
Not plastic, paper, metal — Getränkekarton apart from other composites, Eisenmetall apart from aluminium. A beverage carton is its own line. Report it as composite and the figure is in the wrong row.
France counts UVC
Units of consumer sale, not weight. Under 10 000 UVC a year a small producer pays a flat fee — and that fee is the eco-organisation's price, not a French rule: Citeo charges 110 EUR (2026), Adelphe 80 (2025), Léko caps a simplified declaration under 20 000 UVC at 150. Above 10 000 the declaration is by product family; above 500 000 it is detailed, by material and weight.
The Netherlands counts the weggooi-eenheid
The unit the consumer throws away. The recyclability check is done per that unit, not per article. Below 50 000 kg there is no declaration and no fee — but logistics aids do not count toward the threshold, SUP and deposit packaging have no threshold at all, and you still have to show how you worked out that you are below it.
Poland counts kilograms in eight groups
Plastics, aluminium, ferrous metals, paper and board, glass, wood, multi-material, other. A composite counts as multi-material when no single material is 90 per cent or more of the mass. The 1 Mg threshold exempts you from the levy — not from the register, and not from the report.
Sweden counts kilograms, and prices them by recyclability
Same materials, but the fee moves: in 2026 NPA charged around 6.67 SEK/kg for readily recyclable paper against 9.65 for the rest, and about 13.40 for readily recyclable plastic against 18–20. Registration is two steps, not one — the authority and a PRO.
Italy counts kilograms in nine plastic bands
And the spread is the widest in the EU. From 1 October 2026: band A1.1 at 51 EUR/t against band C at 922 — eighteen times. PVC and carbon black sit in C. The band follows the exact packaging type, not the polymer: a label on HDPE and the same label on PET fall in different bands. Where a flow mixes bands that cannot be told apart, the highest band applies.
What this means for the data you keep
One number will not satisfy six registers. What travels across all of them is the layer underneath: one row per separable component, its material, its weight, and the date that weight was recorded.
From that you can produce material groups, or units, or kilograms in bands. From a single total you can produce none of them.
The register, the threshold and the source for each country are in our country table, with the date each row was checked.
Sources: Tarafex country table; Germany: LUCID; France: Citeo, ADEME, Léko, Adelphe 2025, Projet Celsius; Netherlands: Ondernemersplein; Poland: Marshal's Office of Łódź; Sweden: NPA; Italy: CONAI. Checked 14 September 2026. Not legal advice.