Packaging recycling symbols
What are packaging recycling symbols?
Packaging recycling symbols are the marks printed on a pack that say what it is made of and how it should be thrown away. The usual set is the material code inside a triangle (1 PET, 5 PP, 21 PAP, 41 ALU), the Mobius loop and the Green Dot, which only means the producer pays into a packaging recovery scheme. A code identifies the material; it does not promise that the local service collects it.
Example
A sauce producer launches a new range: a glass jar, a metal lid, a paper label and a cardboard case for transport. The artwork arrives with a single triangle around the number 70, and nothing else. On review, 70 GL is the code for clear glass and the jar is green, so its code is 71 GL; the lid is 40 FE, the label 22 PAP, the case 20 PAP.
The correction takes an hour in prepress, ahead of a run of 30,000 labels. The same mistake caught after printing means new labels for the whole run — new plates, press time and a late delivery, instead of an edit to a file.
Why it matters for a business
The marks are the first thing a retail chain checks when it decides whether a pack is shelf-ready, and the last thing a shopper looks at before choosing a bin. A wrong code rarely stops a sale, but it raises questions in a supply-chain audit and quietly cancels the sorting it was meant to help.
The rules are tightening. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste applies from 12 August 2026 and introduces a harmonised label for material composition, together with a mark for the bin the pack belongs in. Both become mandatory from 12 August 2028, or 24 months after the implementing acts that set the templates enter into force — whichever date falls later. Until then the material codes from Decision 97/129/EC stay voluntary in most countries, but artwork drawn now should leave room for the label that is coming.
What to ask
- Who decides the code for each component — you, the packaging supplier or the designer? Ask for it in writing, material by material.
- Does the shopper separate the pack into parts, and does each part carry its own mark: lid, label, sleeve, tray?
- Do you have a contract with a recovery organisation, and is that what entitles you to print its mark? The Green Dot is a licensed trademark, not a claim of recyclability.
- Where does the artwork leave room for the harmonised PPWR label, and for a deposit-return mark if the product joins such a scheme?
- Who keeps the last approved version of the file, and how do you trace which batch was printed from it?
The codes, the marks and where they sit on the artwork are part of packaging and label design, settled before the file goes to press.