Restrictive measures applied to plastics - Law and practice

Plastic is a material with many qualities, but it's also an unloved one. During the COVID19 pandemic that began in 2020, the hygienic character of plastic was brought back into the spotlight, but it remains a material that is poorly considered from an environmental point of view by public opinion, which is a little schizophrenic since it hates the packaging it uses every day and which protects its health. To save turtles and, more generally, reduce marine and land-based pollution caused by plastics, and also to protect public health from potentially harmful additives, the European Union authorizes, and sometimes even obliges, member states to limit or even ban the use of plastics.

Identifying the products affected by the anti-plastic measures is like drawing up a list of banned products, including lightweight plastic bags (less than 50 microns thick) unless they are compostable, as well as straws, cups, plates, cutlery and stirrers if they are made entirely of plastic, or food containers and fast-food glasses made of expanded polystyrene. Also banned are plastic reheating dishes, non-compostable labels, oxodegradable plastics and microbeads in cosmetics. Similarly, free water in plastic bottles must no longer be offered in establishments open to the public or in companies.

These bans are spread over a decade, from 2016 to 2026.

Because of the principle of free trade within the single European market, restrictions on the use of plastics and bans are rules of exception. What is not expressly prohibited remains authorized. R&D therefore remains essential to find alternative solutions, particularly for "home compostables" outside industrial units.

Some products escape the ban because even with plastic (or even thanks to plastic) they offer indispensable services: intimate hygiene products, wet wipes for the body or cleaning, tobacco products and cups. However, we don't want people to just throw them away, because they often don't know that these products contain plastic. Since July 3, 2021, Europe has imposed a pictogram representing a turtle in danger in the sea because of these products. A very ugly logo to make people disgusted with plastic.

Marketing departments are also in the crosshairs: from now on, it is forbidden to claim that a plastic product is compostable if it is not "home compostable", and it is no longer possible to make general claims about the environmental virtues of a product; specific claims must be communicated.