Which products are banned outright under the SUP Directive?

Article 5 bans several single-use plastic items where alternatives exist: cotton-bud sticks, cutlery, plates, straws, beverage stirrers, balloon sticks, all oxo-degradable plastics, and expanded polystyrene food and drink containers and cups. These cannot be placed on the EU market at all.

What is extended producer responsibility (EPR) here?

Under Article 8, producers of items like cups, food containers, wrappers, bags, wet wipes, and tobacco filters must cover the costs of litter clean-up, awareness campaigns, and waste collection. It shifts the end-of-life cost from the public purse onto the producer.

What is the tethered-cap rule?

Since July 2024, caps and lids on plastic beverage containers up to three litres must remain attached to the container during use. The aim is to stop loose caps becoming litter, and it applies to bottles and cartons alike.

Does the resin code tell me if something is recyclable?

Only roughly. PET and HDPE bottles have mature recycling routes, PP and LDPE depend on local collection, and PVC, PS, and multi-material 7 are rarely recycled. Real recyclability also depends on colour, format, labels, and whether your local system actually accepts the item.

Is national law the same as the directive?

Not always. The SUP Directive sets the floor, but member states transpose it and some go further. The newer Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation also adds graded recyclability classes. Treat this checker as orientation and confirm against the rules in each market you sell into.

What is the Plastic Recyclability & SUP Directive Checker?

Select a single-use plastic product to see its EU SUP Directive (2019/904) status — market ban, marking, extended producer responsibility, tethered caps, recycled content, or collection target — and grade recyclability by resin code. For brand owners and packaging designers. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Plastic Recyclability & SUP Directive Checker

Name: Plastic Recyclability & SUP Directive Checker
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The EU Single-Use Plastics Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/904) regulates the throwaway plastic items most often found as litter. Depending on the product it imposes a market ban, mandatory marking, extended producer responsibility, tethered caps, recycled-content quotas, or separate-collection targets. This checker maps your product to the right measures and grades its recyclability by resin code.

How it works

The directive groups products by the strongest measure that applies. The tool encodes that mapping directly:

Banned (Art. 5):   cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, cotton-bud & balloon sticks,
                   oxo-degradable plastics, EPS food/drink containers and cups
Marking (Art. 7):  cups, wet wipes, sanitary items, tobacco filters
EPR (Art. 8):      cups, containers, wrappers, bags, wipes, filters, bottles
Bottles:           tethered caps, PET recycled content (25% 2025 / 30% 2030),
                   separate collection (77% 2025 / 90% 2029)

Recyclability is then estimated from the resin: PET (1) and HDPE (2) are widely recyclable, PP (5) and LDPE (4) are conditional on local collection, and PVC (3), PS (6), and multi-material (7) are rarely recycled.

Two illustrative cases

Case A — expanded polystyrene (EPS) food container, resin code 6. This product is banned outright under Article 5 and is also in the rarely- recyclable tier for resin reasons. A packaging designer seeing this combination needs to switch material entirely — alternative formats (paper, sugarcane pulp, PET trays) can carry the same food but clear both hurdles.

Case B — clear PET beverage bottle, resin code 1. Permitted on the EU market, but subject to the highest obligation tier: tethered cap required since July 2024, a 25% recycled content requirement from 2025 rising to 30% by 2030, and a collection target of 77% by 2025 and 90% by 2029. On recyclability it scores well — clear PET has mature collection routes across the EU. The business burden here is the supply chain for recycled PET feedstock and the cap re-design cost, not a sales ban.

Resin code recyclability at a glance

SPI code	Resin	Recyclability
1 — PET	Polyethylene terephthalate	Widely recyclable (bottles, trays)
2 — HDPE	High-density polyethylene	Widely recyclable (bottles, caps)
3 — PVC	Polyvinyl chloride	Rarely recycled, avoided in packaging
4 — LDPE	Low-density polyethylene	Conditional (film drop-off programmes)
5 — PP	Polypropylene	Conditional (improving, depends on local system)
6 — PS	Polystyrene	Rarely recycled, EPS forms are banned
7 — Other	Multi-material, PC, PLA etc.	Usually not recyclable in kerbside systems

What this tool does not cover

National transposition can be stricter than the directive. The newer Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) layers on graded recyclability classes and minimum recycled content requirements for a broader range of packaging, not just single-use items. Treat this checker as a rapid orientation for brand owners and packaging designers and confirm against the rules in each market you sell into. All processing stays in your browser.