The transposition date for the Single Use Plastic Directive, at least for the banned-products part, is only a few weeks away. According to the Directive, on the 3rd of July this year 10 different articles will be restricted to place on the market.

However, an EU Directive is not a law – it is an instruction from the EU to the 27 National legislatures to write their own laws to follow the instructions per the Directive. And more importantly, these national laws need to be voted on and implemented by the various parliaments as well. To that end, the EU Directive went into effect on July 3rd, 2019, and it gave the various governments 2 years to complete their legislative processes.

Not completely unsurprising, almost none of the 27 EU member states have completed this in-time and are ready with laws in place for the July 3rd deadline. There are many reasons for these delays, from the normal political delays, to COVID related delays and probably most importantly, a 12 months delay of the EU guidelines that were promised to be published by July 2020, that half-way point of the transposition period. These Guidelines would describe in detail for each SUP product what part of the directive would be applicable, and how this specific Plastic Product would be defined (is it a plate, a bowl, a container?). It would also clarify definitions – what is exactly “plastic”? Is cardboard coated with plastic also included? What is “placing on the market” exactly”.

Since almost no national government seems to be ready with a clear law in place, it is all of us (producers, distributors and end-users) that will need to manage the uncertainty in the market. To assist you with this problem, BFG Packaging has invested and prepared for all possible scenarios regardless of what EU country you are based in.

BFG has readily available variants – both XPP foam containers and Natural Fiber product lines that will not be banned under any possible definition of the SUP Directive. These can be ordered and will be supplied as per usual.

Regarding the XPS products, BFG is allowed to continue to produce and to provide them where sales will be allowed.

You can direct any questions to your BFG Packaging Customer Service contact – they will assist where possible.