On April 2, 2025, the Italian Ministry of the Environment, in an effort to clarify one of the most controversial points of the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUP Directive), submitted to the European Commission a proposal for a technical regulation on the definition of requirements for the reusability of plastic products in contact with food.
The proposal, which involves the collaboration of the Bioplastics Association, has been published on the TRIS database in accordance with EU regulations. The European Commission and Member States will have 3 months (until July 2, 2025) to review the text and provide comments.
The proposal makes adjustments to the provisions of the Conversion Directive (EU) 2019/904 (SUP) to clarify the technical characteristics of reusability of products and prevent products whose labeling is inconsistent with the actual situation from entering the market. The proposal stipulates reusability standards: plastic dinner plates with different specifications according to diameter and weight, and plastic tableware, plastic straws for food, and plastic drink stirrers defined according to the ratio of weight to length.
The reusability criteria set forth in the proposal are as follows:
Plastic plates: plates with a diameter of less than 19 centimeters and weighing more than 45 grams; plates with a diameter between 19 and 24 centimeters and weighing more than 80 grams; plates with a diameter of more than 24 centimeters and weighing more than 110 grams;
Plastic cutlery (forks, knives, spoons, chopsticks): weight-to-length ratio exceeding 0.5 grams per centimeter; plastic straws for food use: weight-to-length ratio exceeding 0.5 grams per centimeter, unless they fall within the scope of Directive 90/385/EEC or Directive 93/42/EEC;
Plastic beverage stirring sticks: weight to length ratio exceeding 0.5 g/cm.
Previously, the environmental organization Legambiente investigated 317 products and found that more than half of the products did not indicate the number of times they should be washed or reused, only 8 per cent of the products had instructions for use in dishwashers and microwave ovens, and 70 per cent of the products were not certified or had nothing to do with reusability. The organization called on the government to clarify the concept of “reusability”, define product reporting information and monitor product market flows.
