Interregional Packaging Commission / Interregionale Verpakkingscommissie / Commission interrégionale de l'Emballage

general direction

Gaucheretstraat 92-94, 1030 Schaarbeek

Rue Gaucheret 92-94, 1030 Schaerbeek

30 June 2025

30 June 2025

30 June 2025

Reporting for the reference year 2023 is done in accordance with the new calculation rules. As off 2020, Belgium no longer uses the old calculation method.

The derogation to make use of the delegated act on average loss rates has not been applied.

Table : Institutions involved in the collection of data and distribution of tasks

See 3.2.1.

The R and D-classificationcodes as described in the annex I (Disposal operations) and in the annex II (Recovery operations) of the Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives, is used. 

Waste.

Recycling rate for wood = (recycling (184 198) + repair (33 943)) / (waste generated (281 071) + repair (33 943))  = 69.25%.

Belgium wishes to take into account the amount of metals in incineration bottom ash (IBA) for the calculation of the targets.

For household packaging it concerns mostly glass bottles with deposit.
For industrial and commercial packaging waste it concerns mostly crates, barrels and palets, both in closed loop and in open loop reuse systems.

Incineration in cement kilns, blast furnaces, drying kilns, biomassinstallations.

The IRPC confirms that the results in the column for "Recovery" are the sum of both and include as well "Energy recovery (R1)" as "Incineration at waste incinerators with energy recovery".

This is not relevant.

Eurostat.

Belgian companies.

Belgium.

1 year.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Tonnes.

Calendar year

Accord de coopération du 4 November 2008 concernant la prévention et la gestion des déchets d'emballages.

Samenwerkingsakkoord van 4 November 2008 betreffende de preventie en het beheer van verpakkingsafval.

Directive 94/62/EC sets out the EU’s rules on managing packaging and packaging waste (Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste).

IVCIE collects the data from the producer responsibility organisations.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

No confidential informaton in the questionnaire.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Yearly.

Annually.

• Interregionale verpakkingscommissie (ivcie.be).
• Homepage | Fost Plus.
• Agir ensemble pour une économie circulaire | Valipac.

Not applicable - to be developed.

Not applicable.

Annual report of the Interregional Packaging Commission.

Interregionale verpakkingscommissie (ivcie.be).

National quality validation standards. For details see section 18.

Guidelines in regional legislation apply.

For details see section 18.4.

Eurostat and other users.

Publications are available for users on IVCIE website.

EPR scheme data controlled by Fost Plus and Valipac are additionally controlled by the Interregional Packaging Commission and are the main source of the Belgian statistics. For details see section 18.

For household one-way packaging, the recycling data are extremely complete, no extrapollation is needed. For reusable household packaging: data are statistically correct but less controls are performed on the data.

For non household one-way packaging there are no issues concerning the accuracy of data. For reusable non household packaging: data are statistically correct but less controls are performed on the data.

There are less reliable data on open loop reusable packaging put onto the market (for the first time). A detailed questionnaire sent by Valipac or the Belgian authorities to European multinational companies will have very limited effect. The pallet pool is an international pool and the pallets are not allocated to a specific country. The few companies replying will generally have difficulty estimating correctly a replacement rate specific for Belgium or will attribute the replacements exclusively to the country where they are based or to the country where the pallets are repaired.

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in previous questions.

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in previous questions.

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in other concepts.

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in other concepts.

No complete data as yet available. On the most important data sources, sampling errors are determined. 

There are few reliable data on open loop reusable packaging put onto the market (for the first time).

A detailed questionnaire sent by Valipac or the Belgian authorities to European multinational companies will have very limited effect. The pallet pool is an international pool and the pallets are not allocated to a specific country. The few companies replying will generally have difficulty estimating correctly a replacement rate specific for Belgium or will attribute the replacements exclusively to the country where they are based or to the country where the pallets are repaired.

For POM data, reporting for year N is done by members to Fost Plus and Valipac by March of year N+1.

For recycling/recovery data, reporting by waste operators is done monthly or two-monthly.

For the POM data, some members' declarations are late. Procedures are in place to remedy this, including penalties and termination of membership. There are no statistical data, but it is not considered a major problem.

For recycling/recovery data punctuality is not a problem.

Not applicable.

No differences.

Information not available.

Information not available.

Explanation detailing the causes of the tonnage difference (in relation to which waste streams, sectors or estimates have caused the difference, and what the underlying cause is) for any component of packaging waste generated and recycled which shows greater than a 10 % variation from the data submitted for the previous data year.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

No backwards corrections of data series. No revised data available on previous years. The new calculation method, applied from the referenceyear 2020 on, requires additional data, which are not available for previous years. There are no other changes to the methodology then the application of the new calculation method for the targets.

EPR scheme data are the main source of the Belgian statistics; other sources give additional information and are used as a cross-check.

The waste samples for waste analysis are taken from:

Data on selective waste flows collected for recycling are collected continuously by Fost Plus and Valipac (on a monthly or two-monthly basis).

Statistical data on the presence of packaging in household and non-household residual waste are collected by the regions, normally every 5 years.

See 18.1 and 18.2.

Only used as partial cross-check.

The drink cartons are composite packaging, consisting of (in average) 75% cardboard fibres - which is recycled as paper and cardboard composite, and a fraction of 25% polyal. This fraction of polyal consists of plastic and less than 5% aluminum. For the reporting year 2023, a increased part of the polyal fraction was recycled (26.90%), whilst 56.15% was incinerated with energy recovery and 16,96% was landfilled.

Additional information about the methodology, including the combination of methods used:

Fost Plus:
Generation of packaging waste: every Fost Plus member must enter its tonnages put on market, in an online declaration system.
Treatment of packaging waste: normally, the recycled tonnage is registered continuously by the recycler in an online application. Exceptionnally, a yearly attestation (signed by the recycler) is accepted. Fost Plus has large and homogenous streams; this makes it possible to take a more limited sample, which nevertheless has sufficient value.

Valipac:
Generation of packaging waste: Every Valipac-member enters his tonnage put on market in on online declaration system. Data are verified and processed by Valipac.
Treatment of packaging waste: every one of the >220 waste management companies reports periodically and yearly. Periodical data are controlled by Valipac and year data are controlled by an independent expert.

Fost Plus: Members must also declare the reusable packaging in their declaration: the number of units placed on the market per retail packaging sheet or per average packaging sheet of a product family ('flat-rate' declaration). No extrapolations are applied; all members who put reusable packaging on the market must declare it.

Valipac: regularly a study is executed with regard to the newly placed on the market reusable industrial & commercial packaging waste in Belgium; this study is then updated annually. Since 2020, the IRPC has done annually a monitoring of the use of reusable packaging, analysing in detail the declarations by the companies that use the highest amonts of reusable packaging per type of product.

Calculation of recycling of metals from incinerator bottom ash : Detailed description of the method to collect data in order to calculate the amount of metals separated from incineration bottom ash in accordance with the Commission Implementing Act adopted in accordance with Article 37(7) of Directive 2008/98/EC.

See 18.4.1-18.4.5.

Fost plus:
Fost Plus launches tender procedure for the purchase and effective recycling of the household packaging waste materials.
Each participant has to provide proof that the waste materials are at least transformed into a raw material that can be used directly by the manufacturers of finished products.
Besides strict exclusion grounds, Fost Plus applies selection criteria related to the technical and financial competence of each participant.
In the event of recycling outside the European Union, each participant must demonstrate that the operating conditions (with regard to environmental and social aspects) are fully equivalent to the conditions determined by the member states.
As a consequence, the household packaging recycling that is organised by Fost Plus is 100% recycled in the European Union.
Fost Plus has direct contracts with the recycling companies and in the contract it is stated that the contractor accepts that Fost plus or any other person designated by them is entitled to inspect or have inspected the flow of materials which is made available, at any time during the contract. Moreover, the contractor accepts that Fost Plus is entitled to organise an audit at the contractor’s in order to examine the flow of the materials and in order to control the actual removal and recycling or recovery of the materials, including the last phase of this recycling and recovery. These audits occur minimally once every 2 years at each contractor. In the event of the contractor calling on the services of one or more subcontractor(s), the requirements described above also apply to the subcontractor(s). Hence, Fost plus can guarantee effective recycling of each material at any time during the contract.

Valipac:
82.6% of the one-way industrial packaging waste is recycled in the EU. Specifically for plastics exported outside the EU, Valipac has a traceability and audit plan to ensure 100% traceability and 90% operational compliance by 2024, as stated in the Accreditation of Valipac for the period 2022-2026. Belgian affliliated Waste management companies and affiliated European Traders, contracted by Valipac provide data which ensure the traceability of the exported industrial packaging waste. Audits outside the EU are executed by SGS. For 2023, Valipac achieved for plastics a traceability of 98,7% and a rate of proven operational compliance of 94%. For cardboard Valipac achieved in 2023 a traceability of 97.8%.

For household packaging waste: see above.

For non-household packaging waste: see above; the described audit procedure includes the assessment of the broadly equivalent waste treatment. In the case of an infringement, an "orange or red flag"-procedure is activated, which, in most cases, obliges recyclers to remedy the problem in time for a follow-up audit. In a limited numer of cases (major infringements) a "final red flag" is given, which will end the export to that recycler.

The columns in the table relate to information on verification procedures used within the national statistical reporting system to validate the accuracy of the data.

The columns in the table relate to information on verification procedures used within the national statistical reporting system to validate the accuracy of the data.

See below.

Primary sources and their shares in the total.

(*) Necessity of a certain minimum amount of waste, turnover etc. to be registered 

Primary sources and their shares in the total.

(*) Necessity of a certain minimum amount of waste, turnover etc. to be registered

Packaging waste generated estimated by waste analysis

Data from Fost Plus and Valipac do not cover the total market; an extrapolation was made based on the estimate of the total market by the accredited compliance organisations Fost Plus and Valipac (based on internal studies). Over the past years, these estimates have been improved on the basis of additional analyses and internal research made by the accredited compliance organisations Fost Plus and Valipac, under the supervision of the IRPC.  

Examples are included in the study ordered by the IRPC and executed by COMASE concerning "Analyse des chiffres sous-jacents servant au rapportage de la CIE sur les résultats en matière de recyclage et de valorisation des déchets d’emballages". This study can be made available.

In 2023 there was 1409 tons of composted paper-cardboard going into anaerobic composting.

Drink cartons consist for 75% of cardboard fibres that are recycled and for 25% of polyal. A part of the polyal fraction was recycled (26.90%) and another part was incinerated with energy recovery (56.15%); the remaining quantities (16.96%) were put into landfill. The average composition was determined on the basis of data received from packer/fillers and from producers of drink cartons. The cardboard fibres are recycled in paper mills.

Description of the sorted packaging waste to which ALRs are applied, types of sorting plants to which different ALRs apply, the methodological approach to calculating ALRs at such point(s), including the statistical accuracy of any surveys used, or the nature of any technical specifications.

All data received from Fost Plus, Valipac and individual compliers have already been corrected to take into account impurities and humidity. This means that further adjustments are not necessary. More information under 18.6.2.

Description, where applicable, of the methodology to exclude non-packaging waste from the reported amount of recycled packaging waste and of the methodology to correct the amount of packaging waste at the measurement point in order to reflect the natural humidity rate of packaging (including by using relevant European standards). Aggregated data across facilities of a similar type is acceptable.

Description of the methodology to exclude waste originating from other countries, where applicable. Aggregated data across facilities of a similar type is acceptable.

No further comment.