— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

The verdict is as groundbreaking as the product name is unwieldy – the Cologne administrative court has dismissed the complaint of a company from the food retail sector. Its corresponding first-instance ruling was that permanent carrier bags are considered service packaging within the meaning of the Packaging Act and are therefore “subject to system participation”. The judges’ opinion stated that it is irrelevant what materials they are made of, which company sells them where, and how buyers use them beyond using them to take home the purchased goods.

Germany’s central agency packaging register ZSVR (Osnabrück; www.verpackungsregister.org) had already categorised long-life carrier bags – i.e. the large-format bags that are often made of PET – as packaging back in 2019. Since then, all distributors have had to pay for subsequent disposal or recycling via licensing.

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The plaintiff, meanwhile, is of the opinion that permanent carrier bags are not packaging, but rather products, since customers are able use the carrier bags several times and also for other purposes and that they are therefore general-purpose bags.

The current ruling affects not only food retailers, but also drugstores, DIY stores, garden centres, furniture stores, pet shops, and toy stores because it means that anyone who offers their customers permanent carrier bags is obliged to finance the recycling of this packaging, subject to final clarification by Germany’s federal administrative court.

The court in Cologne has authorised the leapfrog appeal to the federal level and appeal proceedings are already pending. This means that the ruling of the first-instance court will now be reviewed directly and finally before Germany’s federal administrative court.

— Translated by Elspeth Lenhard