(fra kommisjonsforordningen)

(1) Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 lays down rules on development and suitability of recycling technologies and authorisation of recycling processes, as well as on the manufacturing, marketing and use of plastic materials and articles containing plastic originating from waste. 

(2) The experience gained since the entry into force of that Regulation shows that the rules in regard to the registration of recycling installations need to be laid down in more detail and the use of compliance documentation in the supply chain need to be clarified. 

(3) Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 requires that recyclers and converters issue a declaration of compliance. The Declaration described in Part A of Annex III (Declaration A) is to be provided by recyclers, while the Declaration described in Part B of Annex III (Declaration B) is to be provided by converters. However, to allow all business operators in the supply chain to verify and ensure compliance with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, maintain traceability and facilitate the work of the competent authorities, a declaration of compliance should be provided by operators also at other manufacturing stages within the supply chain other than to consumers. Yet, to avoid excessive burden on operators at the end of the supply chain, food business operators that use plastic with recycled content to pack food should not be obliged to provide a declaration of compliance where they provide the necessary instructions and information on recycled content by means of labelling. 

(4) In accordance with Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, when issuing a declaration of compliance, operators are to have available supporting documentation demonstrating compliance. In order to facilitate compliance with this obligation, it is appropriate to clarify that for the purposes of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 such documentation should comprise declarations received from previous manufacturing stages and other documentation concerning the compliance of the recycled plastic with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, and that it should be available already at the time when operators issue their declaration of compliance and be submitted to the competent authority, upon its request, within ten working days. 

(5) Experience shows that indicating batch numbers in the declaration of compliance to be provided to converters and operators using recycled plastic at its final production stage, is complex and it is not needed after the point in the manufacturing chain where the composition of the plastic is not further modified since the traceability can then be adequately ensured based on the received declarations of compliance. Thus, converters and operators using post-processed recycled plastic at its final production stage should be allowed to issue a simplified declaration (‘Declaration C’), without assigning new batch numbers, and adapted to the final manufacturing stages. However, to ensure efficient enforcement, such declaration should list the recycling installations used in the manufacture of the constituent parts of the articles made of recycled content. 

(6) In order for recyclers receiving partially pre-processed plastic input and plastic input and for competent authorities to ascertain whether the plastic input is compliant with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 and to trace it in case there are questions over its quality or origin, a Declaration of compliance should be issued at all marketing stages of preprocessing stages and for resulting batches of plastic input. This declaration should be referred to as Declaration P. The respective batches should be labelled with a batch number to facilitate their identification. 

(7) Commission Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 allows the reprocessing of off-cuts and scraps. Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 does not explicitly allow for it. However, as such reprocessing may also be carried out with off-cuts and scraps of recycled plastic, rules in this regard should be laid down in accordance with the principles set out in Regulation (EU) No 10/2011. 

(8) Plastic waste, partially pre-processed plastic input, plastic input, recycled plastic, partially post-processed recycled plastics, recycled plastic materials and articles and products made thereof are increasingly imported into the Union, and are to comply with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 when placed on the Union market. To prevent that non-compliant plastic materials and articles with recycled content are released into free circulation on the Union market, and to maintain traceability of the origin of the imported materials, Union’s customs authorities should receive the relevant declaration of compliance as required by Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 at the time the release into free circulation on the Union market is requested. To this purpose it is appropriate to introduce commodity codes for those plastics. However, introducing commodity codes for all recycled plastics at different stages of their manufacturing chain would require detailed differentiation for individual polymers, packed foods and certain other products such as appliances, as well differentiation to marketing stages. This would require the introduction of very many codes, which would be burdensome and increase the risk of misinterpretation at the border. Considering the number of codes that would be required and that only polyethylene terephthalate (‘PET’) is presently produced with a suitable technology and subject to recycled content targets under Union environmental legislation such codes should only be introduced for kitchenware and tableware and for PET including if part of multi-layer materials, but not for packed food, appliances and food processing equipment even if packed in or manufactured from PET. 

(9) In order to facilitate the task of the customs authorities, and to prevent misidentification and fraud, declarations of compliance supplied with plastic with recycled content that originates from third countries should mention the commodity codes used to import recycled plastic materials in accordance with the Union customs legislation. 

(10) The registration status of decontamination installations has significant impact on the respective use of those installations and is an important safeguard to avoid the placement of unsafe recycled plastic on the Union market. However, the full implementation of the registration status in accordance with Article 24(2), point (g) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 is hindered by the lack of clearly defined procedures and the list of possible statuses of installation in the Register does not allow to distinguish between different scenarios and needs to be completed to reflects all possible situations during the lifecycle of an installation. Furthermore, the current registration also does not allow operators and competent authorities to change the status when the use of an installation changes, which slows down its implementation administratively and increases the risks for mistakes. Therefore, it is important for the management of the Union register of novel technologies, recyclers, recycling processes, recycling schemes and decontamination installations (‘the Register’) to facilitate the access to the system for operators and competent authorities by creating an electronic registration system where operators are to enter and modify directly their respective information under the competent authorities’ supervision. 

(11) There are currently no defined rules as regards the detailed specifications of preprocessed plastic input such as those reported in appendix A to opinions concerning recycling processes that the European Food Safety Authority publishes. In order to ensure safety, maximum limits concerning these specifications and methods to verify compliance should be laid down. A method for this purpose is already provided for in Annex A of ISO 12418-2:2012 which should be considered as appropriate for this purpose. Further methods for the same purpose are being developed and should also be allowed provided that they have an equal or better performance. 

(12) Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 should therefore be amended accordingly. 

(13) In order to allow operators to adapt to the changes established with this Regulation but considering that those changes are necessary to protect human health and are of an administrative nature only, products complying with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, as applicable before the date of the entry into force of this Regulation, and for which Declarations A or B are required should be allowed to be placed on the market for a period of three months after the entry into force of this Regulation even if they do not comply with the rules concerning those Declarations laid down in this Regulation. However, as operators need information from earlier stages to issue Declaration C and a declaration was not required at pre-processing stages before, products complying with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, as applicable before the date of the entry into force of this Regulation, and for which this Regulation requires Declarations C or P, should be allowed to be placed on the market without those declarations for a period of six months after the entry into force of this Regulation. In order to ensure a smooth transition, it should be possible to manufacture recycled plastic materials and articles from such products placed on the market during the transitional periods and place them on the market until exhaustion of stocks. 

(14) The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed,