With the adopted Circular Economy Action Plan (BMUKN, 3 June 2026), the German Federal Government is setting out the next steps for implementing the National Circular Economy Strategy. By the end of 2027, twelve measures are to be advanced, including investment and innovation funding, digitalisation, raw material supply, circular economy legislation, and the use of recycled content in plastics.
Particularly important for INAK and our sector: bio-based and biodegradable plastics are explicitly mentioned as potential contributors to an effective circular economy. In the context of adapting national packaging law to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the programme states that the potential for an effective circular economy should be leveraged in the upcoming negotiations on delegated and implementing acts, for example through the use of bio-based and biodegradable plastics.
This is an important signal. It shows that the potential of compostable packaging applications should not be excluded across the board, but rather assessed on an application-specific and science-based basis.
A particularly relevant example is compostable fruit and vegetable bags. After their initial use as packaging, they can be sensibly reused as collection aids for biowaste. In this way, they combine resource efficiency, multiple use, separate biowaste collection, and the prevention of conventional plastic inputs into biowaste.
From our perspective, the German Federal Government should now make concrete use of the openness expressed in the Action Plan. Fruit and vegetable bags should be reassessed as part of the national implementation of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation and, in future, be established as a mandatory certified industrially compostable application.
The full Action Programme is available here:
https://www.bundesumweltministerium.de/download/aktionsprogramm-der-bundesregierung-zur-umsetzung-der-nationale-kreislaufwirtschaftsstrategie
Further information on INAK’s call for mandatory compostable fruit and vegetable bags is available here:
https://inak.bio/ppwr-umsetzen-verbaende-fordern-pflicht-fuer-kompostierbare-obst-und-gemuesebeutel/