The citizen knows well the gesture of separating a plastic bottle, a can or a carton and depositing them in the yellow container. This system has been part of the domestic routine for decades. but it exists another huge flow of packaging that never enters a home and which, until recently, was subject to different rules. They are the fruit boxes in supermarkets, the bags used by restaurants or the plastics that wrap pallets of drinks during their distribution.
Eduardo Saez Rojomanager of the Department of Collections Outside the Home of Ecoembes, explains it like this: “In the case of domestic packaging, those that reach the citizen, the expanded responsibility of the producer has been applied for many years, since 1997,” he points out. “But from January 1, 2025, with the new Royal Decree on Packaging, this rule also applies to commercial packaging. Whoever puts a container on the market must be in charge of its management and be accountable on the recovery of that waste”.
The idea behind the model is simple: a company’s responsibility for a container does not end the moment it is sold. If that container, box, wrapper or support is going to later become waste, whoever places it on the market must contribute financially to ensure that it is collected, classified and recycled .
“A commercial container is one that is intended for a commercial activity and, therefore, does not reach the final consumer,” summarizes Saez Rojo. The sectors affected by the regulatory change are diverse: stores, suppliers, Horeca channel (hotels, restaurants and cafeterias), supermarkets… Examples are present in practically any establishment. Could be the bag of sugar that a restaurant buys or the cardboard used to transport detergent containers in a supermarketwhich the customer does not usually see because they remain in the warehouse.
It is the establishment that then becomes responsible. “Let’s imagine a clothing store where clothes arrive in different boxes and plastic”exemplifies Saez Rojo. “These materials stay in the store and it is the store that has to manage them correctly as the final owner of the waste.”
What is a SCRAP and what is it for?
That thousands of companies must take responsibility for the packaging they put on the market does not mean that each one has to set up a collection and recycling structure on its own. Doing it individually would be especially complex in a system in which manufacturers, distributors, businesses, waste managers, sorting plants and recyclers spread throughout the territory participate.
There appear the Collective Systems of Extended Producer Responsibility (SCRAP). Through them, different companies come together to collectively fulfill their obligations. Producers adhere to the system and provide the necessary financing to manage the waste derived from the packaging they put into circulation.
“In the end, a SCRAP is the grouping of many companies to make the entire system efficient,” explains Saez Rojo. “For example, Ecoembes Comerciales is a SCRAP which acts as an ally so that they can collectively comply with the legislation. Our job is to turn a fairly complex regulatory obligation into a practical solution for thousands of companies.”
The system connects two extremes that may be very far from each other. On one side are those who put the containers on the market and must finance their management. On the other hand, the establishments where these materials end up converted into waste and the managers in charge of collecting and treating them. Between both, there must also be traceability that allows knowing how much material is recovered and what happens with it..
“We are, in some way, the gear for all this to work through financing and for All this data can subsequently be transferred to both the autonomous communities and the Ministry“says Saez Rojo. This information makes it possible to calculate separate collection and recycling rates and prove compliance with the objectives set by national and European legislation.
The route changes depending on the material, but shares a common logic. When the packaging becomes waste, the materials are separated and collected by authorized managers. “These send materials such as paper, cardboard or film to classification plants, where they are selected,” explains Saez Rojo. “Once classified, they are baled and sent to the recyclers.”
In some cases, recycling can be avoided because the packaging itself can still be reused. It happens, for example, with pallets. When they are still in good condition, they can reach specialized managers who repair them and put them back into circulation. Only when deterioration makes it impossible to extend its useful life can the wood be shredded and used to make new materials, such as chipboard.
The first year already offers an idea of the size of that circuit. During 2025, Ecoembes recycled 735,527 tons of commercial packaging through collaboration with 117 marketssupermarkets, shops and shopping centers that had their own or private waste management systems. The figure represents a 47.7% recycling ratealthough it still does not incorporate all the material recovered through municipal systems.
This last point is important to interpret the data. There are small establishments that generate commercial packaging but use municipal containers to dispose of them. It can occur, for example, with a tobacconist or a lottery administration that deposits its cardboard boxes in the blue container on the street. As long as the corresponding agreements with public administrations are not articulated, these amounts are not yet part of the data recorded by the system. Therefore, the final volume will be greater when the fraction of commercial packaging that is currently recovered through municipal services can also be incorporated.
In his first year of activity, Ecoembes Comerciales also had 11,078 clients. Of them, 9,128 were companies that already worked with Ecoembes to fulfill their obligations related to domestic packaging and that also incorporated commercial packaging. These were joined by another 1,950 companies that entered exclusively through this new category.
In the future, regulation will not be limited to organizing what happens when packaging becomes waste. Brussels’ next step will force European companies to act much earlier, while it is still being designed. “Throughout these years and facing 2030 and 2035 the regulations will become stricter”says Saez Rojo, and warns that “European demands are moving towards packaging that is increasingly recyclable, reusable and capable of being treated on an industrial scale, which will force numerous companies to review materials and formats in the coming years.”
In this field, Ecoembes has tools such as Circular Check, which allows you to analyze the recyclability of a container and anticipate how it can respond to future regulatory demands. Saez Rojo anticipates that “there will be many containers that will have to be adapted, because if a container cannot be recycled on a scale it will not be able to be put on the market.”
With SCRAP, recyclability is no longer solely an issue linked to the end of the chain, ensuring that there are fewer and fewer materials that are difficult to recover and that the packaging that enters the market is designed from the beginning to remain within the production cycle, promoting eco-design.