Packaging in Germany: what changed since July 1st, 2022?
Germany has been disciplining the responsibility and the correct recycling of packaging destined for end-users at the end of their life cycle since 2019. The aim is to reduce the environmental impact as much as possible.
A change of law has been introduced on July 1, 2022, and this is having an impact on all the shipments of packaging filled with goods towards the German market.
All initial distributors (defined as “the party commercially introducing packaging filled with goods in the German jurisdiction”) must register onto the "LUCID Packaging Register" (Verpackungsregister) for all types of packaging, not only those subject to system participation.
Serpac kindly reminds all users of our packaging for dangerous goods to register whenever our packaging is used to ship towards Germany. That would count as an “initial distributor” operation, thus performed by “the party commercially introducing packaging filled with goods in the German jurisdiction”.
If the goods are only prepared by you, but your clients are picking them up at your facilities and organizing the delivery by themselves, they will be the "initial distributors". Therefore, the duty of registering on the LUCID website will be theirs.
Anyone failing to fulfill legal obligations may receive fines up to 200.000 euros, and the goods are banned from entering the German market: it is, therefore, important to adhere to the system as soon as possible.
We also would like to stress that this procedure does not only apply to fibreboard boxes, but to all packaging types or systems, like pallets, film wrap, or others.
For any insight or further information, it is better to consult advisors and/or associations that may support you to have a better understanding of the law.