The European Union is planning stricter controls on plastic imports, including tougher documentation requirements, as it seeks to support domestic recycling plants facing rising costs and competition from cheaper overseas material.
The European Commission said it would introduce tougher rules for plastic imports in an effort to help Europe’s recycling industry, which has been hit by high energy prices and low-cost imports.
According to industry group Plastics Recyclers Europe, Europe’s plastics recycling sector lost more capacity in 2025 than in any previous year, with plants closing in countries including the Netherlands as a result of rising costs and competition from cheaper imports.
A key concern, the Commission said, is that virgin plastic — produced from fossil fuels — is being mislabelled as recycled material. This makes it harder for European recyclers to compete, as genuinely recycled plastic is typically more expensive to produce.
The recycling sector is facing high energy costs, low and unpredictable prices for virgin plastic (linked to oil prices), and competition from imports of cheap plastics — often virgin plastics wrongly claimed to be recycled
In a policy document published on Tuesday, Reuters news agency reports the European Commission said it would propose legal changes in the first half of 2026 requiring stricter documentation for imports of recycled plastics. It also plans to introduce separate customs codes for recycled and virgin plastics to improve import tracking.
“The recycling sector is facing high energy costs, low and unpredictable prices for virgin plastic (linked to oil prices), and competition from imports of cheap plastics — often virgin plastics wrongly claimed to be recycled,” the Commission said.
The measures will also include audits of recycling facilities, including plants outside the EU, and additional support for laboratories to verify whether imported shipments labelled as recycled plastic meet the required standards.
Brussels said it would assess whether trade measures are needed and confirmed that an EU import surveillance task force will monitor plastic imports throughout 2026.
The EU has already imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese PET plastic — commonly used in bottles — after concluding that imports were being sold at prices that forced EU producers to operate at a loss. Last month, six EU countries including France, Spain and the Netherlands called on the bloc to take further action against imports of low-quality recycled plastics sold at heavily discounted prices.
Separately, the Commission has proposed rules clarifying how chemically recycled materials can count towards EU requirements for products to contain recycled content.