What Article 6 requires
All packaging placed on the EU market must be recyclable — a general obligation that applies from 12 August 2026, not from 2030. Three things land later and are often collapsed into one: the design-for-recycling criteria (delegated acts, not yet adopted); the graded floor A / B / C from 1 Jan 2030 or 24 months after the Article 6(4) delegated acts, whichever is later, with only grades A or B from 1 Jan 2038 (Article 6(3)), for the packaging categories listed in Annex II; and the "recycled at scale" limb from 1 Jan 2035. The grade thresholds themselves ARE in the text — Annex II Table 3 sets grade A at 95% or more, B at 80% or more, C at 70% or more, and treats anything below 70% as technically non-recyclable. The criteria that turn a packaging unit into a letter wait on the Article 6(4) delegated act, due by 1 January 2028.
When Article 6 applies
One line per dated paragraph. Applies — the date has passed. Firm — written in the regulation, nothing in the pipeline can push it back. Conditional — a floor: the obligation starts on that date, or a set number of months after the act it waits on enters into force, whichever is later.
| Paragraph | Date | What starts | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 6 | Recyclable packaging | Applies |
Annexes Article 6 calls
Annex II — Categories and parameters for assessment of recyclability of packaging. Categories and parameters for assessing packaging recyclability under Article 6, in four tables. Table 1 lists the packaging materials, types and categories; Table 2 the categories for the "recycled at scale" assessment; Table 3 the recyclability performance grades — grade A is 95 % or higher, grade B 80 % or higher, grade C 70 % or higher, and below 70 % the packaging unit is technically non-recyclable; Table 4 the non-exhaustive parameters for the design-for-recycling criteria. The criteria that turn a packaging unit into a letter wait on the Article 6(4) delegated act, due by 1 January 2028. Text on EUR-Lex
Related articles
Read the text
Article 6 on EUR-Lex · Regulation (EU) 2025/40, full text
Legal review of 2026-09-02
Each date above is a literal read from the regulation or the Commission guidance, never derived by arithmetic from entry into force. A date present in the reference with no entry in the catalogue fails our build.