A tonne of recycled polymer that still counts as waste is a different commercial object from the same tonne that counts as a product. It moves across borders under notification procedures, it needs a permitted site at both ends, and a fair number of buyers will not touch it. This is the problem harmonised end-of-waste criteria are meant to solve. The EU criteria for plastics were drafted as an implementing act under the Waste Framework Directive, published for consultation on 23 December 2025, and set to apply from 1 July 2026. What they cover is narrower than the headline suggests.
What the act is trying to fix
End-of-waste already existed as a concept in the Waste Framework Directive, but the judgement of when material stopped being waste sat with national authorities. The result was twenty-seven answers to one question. A recycler in one Member State could sell recyclate as a product while a competitor across the border was still shipping the same specification as waste.
That divergence is not a paperwork nuisance. It decides which plants can supply which customers, and it makes cross-border trade in secondary raw material more expensive than trade in virgin polymer. Harmonised criteria replace national discretion with one test applied the same way everywhere.
The Commission’s Joint Research Centre did the technical groundwork. Its scoping study ranked plastic waste as the highest-priority stream of the five it assessed, which is why plastics arrived ahead of the others.
What is in scope
The act covers mechanical and physical recycling of thermoplastic polymers and blends of thermoplastic polymers, regardless of polymer type. That is a wide material scope and a narrow process scope, and the second half matters more than the first.
Material scope being polymer-agnostic means the criteria do not privilege PET over polyolefins. A regranulate from mixed polypropylene is judged by the same framework as food-grade PET flake. Whether it passes depends on the material, not on which chapter of the rulebook it falls under.
What is left out, and why it matters
Chemical recycling is not covered. Neither are thermosets or other non-thermoplastic plastics.
The chemical recycling exclusion is the consequential one. Pyrolysis oil and depolymerisation outputs are precisely the streams where waste status is most contested, because the material changes chemically along the way and the point at which it stops being waste is genuinely arguable. Leaving them out means the sector that most needed a common answer did not get one, and continues to work with national interpretations.
It also creates an asymmetry worth watching. Mechanical recyclers get a clearer route to product status, while chemical recycling keeps a regulatory question mark that investors read as risk. That is a policy signal, whether or not it was intended as one.
What changes commercially
Three things move for a mechanical recycler whose output meets the criteria. Cross-border sales stop requiring waste shipment formalities, which removes cost and, more importantly, lead time. Customers who are not permitted to receive waste become addressable. And the material can be specified and contracted like any other commodity, with the quality obligations that follow.
The last point cuts both ways. Product status brings product liability and general product safety obligations. A recycler used to selling waste under a waste permit acquires a different set of duties along with the easier route to market.
The timing sits alongside another change in the same direction: from 21 May 2026, exports of non-hazardous plastic waste to OECD countries moved to the notification procedure, and from 21 November 2026 exports to non-OECD countries are banned. We covered that shift in our note on the new waste shipment rules. Material that ceases to be waste inside the EU is material those restrictions no longer reach.
Frequently asked questions
What does end-of-waste mean for plastics?
It is the point at which recycled plastic legally stops being waste and can be placed on the market as a secondary raw material, with the obligations of a product rather than those of a waste stream.
Which recycling processes do the EU criteria cover?
Mechanical and physical recycling of thermoplastic polymers and blends of thermoplastic polymers, regardless of polymer type. Chemical recycling is not covered.
When do the criteria apply?
The implementing act was published for consultation on 23 December 2025, with feedback accepted until 26 January 2026, and is set to apply from 1 July 2026.
Why were plastics addressed first?
The Joint Research Centre ranked plastic waste as the highest-priority stream among the five categories it assessed in its scoping study.
Does end-of-waste status remove all regulatory duties?
No. It replaces waste-regime duties with product-regime duties, including product liability and general product safety obligations.
