Paper recycling rates are high, but recycled content proof is the real test

Four stories landed this week that, on their own, look like routine trade news: a stable recycling rate, an opinion piece, a university pilot plant, a certification launch. Read together, they describe the same shift. Across fibre and flexible plastics, the industry is moving from claiming recyclability to having to prove it, with numbers that stand up to audit.

Europe’s paper recycling rate holds at 76.4%, but a UK industry body says that’s the wrong number to chase

The European Paper Recycling Council (EPRC) has calculated a 76.4 percent recycling rate for all paper products in 2025, including graphic paper, packaging and tissue, in the European nations for which it gathers statistics. EPRC says the majority of European countries it surveys, 20 out of 30, sustain recycling rates above 70 percent, and the organisation refers to the rate as stable in 2025, saying the percentage confirms “the robustness and maturity of Europe’s paper recycling system”.

European paper recycling rate, 2021-2025

The rate has moved around a lot over four years: a low in 2022, a spike in 2023 driven by unusually low paper and board consumption, then a drift back toward the industry’s 2030 target of 76%, which it has now technically reached five years early. That volatility is the point of a separate argument being made in the UK this week.

Writing for letsrecycle.com, Dimitra Rappou of the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) argues that “recyclable” under RAM 2027 is not enough for fibre-based packaging. The piece lands as the UK’s RAM (Recyclability Assessment Methodology) statutory guidance for 2027 is published, and it goes after the basic assumption behind modulated EPR fees: that packaging that is difficult to recycle should attract higher costs, while packaging that is recyclable should be rewarded, with the RAM providing the mechanism for making that distinction.

Rappou’s case is that a format can look technically compliant while behaving badly in a real paper mill. She points out that non-paper components, whether obvious or less visible, such as laminates, coatings, metallisation, inks, varnishes and adhesives can reduce fibre recovery, increase reject volumes, add processing costs, consume more energy and affect the quality of recycled fibre. That’s a UK EPR argument, not an EU one, but it previews exactly the distinction the PPWR is about to force on every EU market: from 2030, packaging doesn’t just need a recyclability label, it needs a grade of A, B or C, and from 2038 only grades A and B will be allowed at all. A format that scrapes a technical “recyclable” pass today may not survive that grading once it has to reflect actual fibre or polymer recovery, not just material identity.

Recycled fibre gets more expensive just as demand for it is set to rise

While the recyclability debate plays out, the price of the feedstock behind it is moving. Fastmarkets reports that recycled containerboard prices increased across Germany, France, Poland, Italy and Spain, supported by higher costs and tight supply in September. The scale varies by market: prices for recycled containerboard increased by €60 per tonne in Germany, France and Poland, driven by higher input costs and a tight supply situation, while in Spain, prices rose by €60 per tonne from mid-September, though they remained flat in the UK.

For converters and brand owners, this is the practical backdrop to every recycled-content commitment on fibre packaging. The PPWR’s recyclability push assumes there will be a market willing and able to pay for recovered fibre; if recovered fibre is already tightening even before the regulation’s full weight lands, packs with mixed materials or heavy coatings that recyclers reject become a double cost: once in lost feedstock value, and again if a C grade or outright restriction follows.

A dissolution pilot in Ghent aims to turn crisp packets into food-grade plastic

On the plastics side, Recycling International reports that researchers at Ghent University are testing a technology aimed squarely at the packaging formats mechanical recycling struggles with most: multilayer, metallised and heavily printed films such as crisp packets and some detergent pouches. The method, dissolution, sits between mechanical and chemical recycling, using solvents rather than heat or shredding to separate polymer from everything attached to it.

The university’s pilot, called Clarify, is described as a pilot installation costing more than EUR 2 million that uses solvents to separate polymers from contaminants including inks, colourants, plasticisers and stabilisers. Crucially for food-contact applications, following purification, the recovered polymers can be used to produce new high-quality plastics, including material for food-grade packaging, and the technology can also process multilayer films and other plastics made from several components. Lead researcher Steven De Meester describes it as a relatively simple process with low energy consumption and a recovery yield of more than 90 percent.

This matters for exactly the packaging formats the PPWR treats hardest: flexible, multi-material films that currently fail most sorting and recycling infrastructure tests. It’s a pilot, not a commercial plant, and the step from a university installation in Kortrijk to industrial throughput is not small. But it’s a credible answer to a question brand owners in snacks, pet food and personal care keep asking: is there any route for today’s multilayer film beyond energy recovery.

Certification and material redesign start to answer the recycled-content question

Two more items this week show the other half of the proof problem: not just “can this be recycled” but “can I show this contains the recycled content I claim”.

PolyCert Europe has launched PolyCert Food, a new third-party certification scheme for recycled plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. The scheme assesses companies against requirements covering good manufacturing practices, critical control point management, quality assurance and full traceability of each batch back to the first point of sorting of collected plastic waste, with recycled content calculated in accordance with EN 15343. It is built to demonstrate compliance with Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, the EU’s recycled plastics food-contact rules, and certified companies appear on a public register, which gives customers, brand owners and authorities a transparent and verifiable record of certification status.

For procurement teams, this is directly relevant to the PPWR’s 2030 recycled-content minimums: 30% for contact-sensitive PET, 10% for contact-sensitive non-PET, rising further by 2040. Those numbers are only useful to a brand owner if the recycled content behind them can be audited, not just claimed on a data sheet.

On the material side, Manchester manufacturer Duo Packaging has developed a graphene-enhanced polyethylene film, branded 2DPE, in partnership with the University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre. Industrial trials with retailer QVC found the film boosted material strength by up to 35% and increased the levels of recycled content used in their packaging from 45% to 60%, while also reducing the heat-sealing temperatures required to seal the bags by 15 degrees. Film thickness dropped from an already-low 30 microns to 28 microns, meaning the film was approximately 5% lighter than QVC’s previous solution.

QVC has switched to the new film at its Liverpool fulfilment centre, and the weight saving alone is projected to save QVC around £21,150 in packaging Extended Producer Responsibility fees per year. It’s a single-converter, single-retailer case study, not a market-wide shift, and the claims come from the companies involved rather than independent verification. But it’s a concrete example of a mono-material film moving recycled content upward while cutting weight, which is the combination both UK EPR modulation and the PPWR’s recycled-content and empty-space rules are designed to reward.

What the four stories have in common

Development	Material segment	What it shows	Who needs to act
EPRC paper recycling rate, 2025	Fibre, all paper and board	Headline rate is high and stable, but annual volatility shows the rate alone doesn’t capture fibre quality	Sustainability managers reporting on fibre circularity
CPI opinion on RAM 2027	Fibre-based composite packaging	A “recyclable” pass can still carry laminates, coatings or adhesives that degrade real-world fibre recovery	Packaging designers, converters facing EPR fee modulation
Ghent University Clarify pilot	Multilayer and metallised flexible film	Dissolution recycling can recover food-grade polymer from formats mechanical recycling rejects	Recyclers, flexible packaging brand owners (snacks, pet food)
PolyCert Food and Duo Packaging 2DPE	Recycled plastics, mono-material film	Independent certification and material redesign both move recycled-content claims from marketing to audit	Procurement, converters supplying food-contact or e-commerce packaging

PPWR minimum recycled content in plastic packaging

The common thread is verification. Europe’s paper system is genuinely strong by any global comparison, but a stable 76% rate sits alongside an industry voice warning that the assessment behind it doesn’t yet separate genuinely recyclable formats from ones that merely look that way on paper. On plastics, a university pilot and a new certification scheme are both, in different ways, trying to put numbers behind claims that used to rest on assumption: that a film is recyclable, that a pellet contains the recycled content stated on its spec sheet.

None of this is optional background reading for packaging teams working toward 2030. The PPWR’s recyclability grades and recycled-content minimums will only be as credible as the data behind each pack, and that data increasingly has to come from an accredited scheme or a documented process, not a design intention.

What to do now

If you run fibre-based packaging through UK EPR, read the CPI’s RAM 2027 argument against your own pack specifications, especially anything with laminates, metallisation or heavy coatings, before fee modulation bites.
For EU food-contact packaging using recycled plastic, check whether your current supply chain can produce a traceable compliance record against Regulation (EU) 2022/1616; a scheme like PolyCert Food is one route, but confirm with your legal team which evidence your authorities will accept.
Track dissolution and advanced recycling pilots for your own flexible formats. If you sell snacks, pet food or other multilayer film packaging, a pilot-stage route today could be a commercial feedstock option before the PPWR’s 2035 “recyclable at scale” test applies.
Model your fibre packaging costs against rising recovered-fibre prices, not just current PCR targets. Tight recycled fibre supply changes the economics of any redesign decision made for compliance alone.
Where recycled-content or recyclability claims matter to a customer or regulator, get the claim checked against the official PPWR text or formal guidance rather than relying on a supplier’s marketing material.