PPWR: what the new EU packaging regulation means for wire and cable

The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, known as PPWR, became generally applicable on 12 August 2026. It replaces the packaging and packaging waste directive that has governed European packaging law since the 1990s. Because PPWR is a regulation rather than a directive, it applies directly in every member state to the same timetable, and it reaches any business placing packaging or packaged goods on the EU market, including suppliers based outside the EU.

The regulation defines packaging by function: any item used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery or presentation of goods, in any material, across industrial, transport and retail formats. That definition matters to this industry. Under long-standing EU classification rules, reels, drums and spools that are wound with product and delivered to a customer are generally treated as packaging rather than as equipment. Process reels that stay inside a customer's own production line are treated differently, and the distinction between the two is worth establishing product line by product line rather than assuming across a range.

The requirements phase in over more than a decade. Four dates matter most to packaging in the wire and cable supply chain:

• 12 August 2026. Substance restrictions apply, including a combined limit of 100 mg/kg for lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium in packaging materials.
• August 2028. Harmonised material composition labelling begins, standardising how packaging is marked for sorting and recycling.
• February 2029. Packaging marketed as reusable must carry a harmonised reusability marking.
• January 2030. Reuse targets apply to a named list of bulk transport formats including pallets, crates, drums, pails and IBCs, and the first recyclability performance thresholds take effect for packaging generally.

Registration, reporting and producer responsibility duties generally sit with the business that places the packaged product on the EU market. In this supply chain that is usually the cable maker, wire drawer or telecom supplier rather than the packaging manufacturer. Those producers cannot answer for their packaging on their own, though. They need material composition data, substance declarations and recyclability information from whoever manufactured the reel, and supply chain audits on exactly these points have already started.

Pentre Group has a PPWR action plan running across the business. It covers material and substance review across the timber, steel, plastic, plywood and cardboard ranges, the compliance documentation customers will need for their own registrations and technical files, and the reel return and refurbishment arrangements that have been part of this industry for years. The group is also tracking the implementing rules still being finalised at EU level, so that customers do not have to follow each one themselves.

If you are looking to recycle or refurbish old drums, reels or spools, please contact us.

If PPWR is on your compliance agenda, our product specialists would rather have the conversation early than under deadline pressure. Contact us to discuss your product lines, or watch this page for further updates as documentation becomes available.