The headlines write themselves. Switzerland has adopted a new Ordinance on Packaging (VerpV), setting minimum recycling rates of 55% for plastic packaging and 70% for beverage cartons. Every packaging trade outlet has led with those figures, and they’re worth knowing. They are not, however, the full story.
The story is that a country sitting geographically in the heart of Europe, yet outside the European Union, has just written its own comprehensive packaging framework. One that rhymes with the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), without matching it. For any business placing packaging across European borders, the similarities and differences matter far more than any headline percentage. It confirms a sustainability legislation pattern that has been building for some time, and one that is about to make packaging strategy considerably more complicated.
What Switzerland has done
First, the essentials. Adopted by the Federal Council on 24 June 2026 and applying from the start of 2027, VerpV replaces packaging legislation that had been in place since 2000. It is the first time Switzerland has set a comprehensive legal framework for packaging, rather than regulating beverage containers alone.
From 2030, packaging placed on the Swiss market must be designed to be as recyclable as possible, kept to the minimum necessary weight and volume, and free of defined hazardous substances (Switzerland banned BPA in food-contact materials back in 2025). Minimum recycled-content thresholds rise over time, reaching as high as 65% for some plastic formats by 2040. Eco-modulated producer fees arrive in 2030, a subsidiary take-back obligation for single-use plastic packaging and beverage cartons follows in 2031, and an advance disposal fee extends to glass food and cosmetic packaging from 2028.
One major choice stands out. Unlike the EU, which requires deposit return systems for single-use plastic and metal beverage containers by 2029, Switzerland has deliberately left beverage containers outside a mandatory deposit. Instead, it sets recycling targets and holds a deposit or advance fee in reserve, to be introduced only if those targets are missed. That change sums up an entire regulatory philosophy.
The same destination, via different roads
There is a comfortable assumption in our industry that packaging regulation is converging, that the world is steadily marching towards one harmonised, circular future.
In terms of ambition, that is true. Design for recyclability, mandated recycled content, producer-pays funding, and fees that reward good design and penalise bad, and principles now appear almost everywhere you look.
But the instruments delivering them are diverging, not converging. A brand selling into the EU, the UK and Switzerland is now navigating three separate frameworks, PPWR, the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility and Recyclability Assessment Methodology, and VerpV, with broadly similar goals but different definitions, thresholds, timelines and reporting routes. “Recyclable” is defined one way in Brussels and another in Bern. There is no single European rulebook for packaging compliance, and Switzerland has just made that more obvious.
The challenge for a pan-European business is not any one regulation, as most operations teams can absorb a new set of rules. The challenge is the accumulation of overlapping, non-identical obligations, each demanding its own evidence, on its own schedule.
Pragmatism is doing heavy lifting
Switzerland’s approach has been described by some as more pragmatic than the EU’s. Look closely and you can see the design decisions behind that word: the regulation targets as the primary lever, with deposits and fees held back as a backstop. Turnover and volume thresholds that keep smaller players out of the heaviest reporting, with outcomes prioritised over granular, prescriptive mandates.
It is placing a different bet to the EU. Set the destination clearly and leave more of the route to industry.
Whether that bet pays off is a genuinely open question, and an interesting one. Does rigid harmonisation drive circularity faster, or does a lighter, outcomes-led framework achieve the same ends with less friction? Nobody is quite sure yet. What is fascinating is that Europe is now effectively running that experiment in real time, across adjacent markets. The results of this will likely influence how the next wave of national rulebooks is written.
It was never ‘just’ a design problem
A pack is not recyclable because a designer says so. It is recyclable if the labels, inks, adhesives, closures, coatings and, crucially, the actual local collection and sorting infrastructure all agree.
Underneath the targets, both VerpV and PPWR are about evidence. That includes bills of materials, supplier declarations, recycled-content proof, recyclability assessments, and market-placement records.
This is the precise point that a compliance question becomes a marketing one. When “recyclable” means different things in different markets, what can you credibly say on-pack, and in your campaigns, across borders? A claim that is fully substantiated and compliant in the EU may not map neatly onto Swiss definitions, or Swiss collection realities. With green-claims scrutiny tightening across every one of these jurisdictions, the space between what your packaging does and what you are permitted to say about it has become one of the most commercially sensitive areas of your marketing. Get it wrong, and there are penalties both financially and in terms of consumer trust.
What comes next?
Expect more of this, not less. Most likely, Switzerland will not be the last European-but-not-EU market to author its own packaging rules. It remains to be seen if Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein follow suit, or if the Swiss packaging rules will influence further development of the UK’s current framework.
The wider global picture, from North American state-by-state schemes to national frameworks emerging under the global plastics treaty, points the same way. That direction is circular-economy-by-legislation, delivered through a growing patchwork of non-identical rulebooks.
From a packaging design perspective, perhaps the most useful response is to build for the strictest market you sell into and let the others fall comfortably inside it, rather than maintaining an unwieldy matrix of market-specific variants. The thread that ties the whole picture together is eco-modulation.
Wherever you trade, better design lowers your fees and poorer design raises them. The thresholds diverge, but the underlying principle, that design decisions now carry a direct financial consequence, aligns everywhere.
This leaves print and packaging leaders with one major question to dwell on. Are you treating each new regulation as a separate fire to put out, or are you building a single, coherent packaging and communications strategy that anticipates the pattern? The first approach means a future of perpetual catch-up redesigns, but the second turns regulatory readiness into a proof point, and a genuine brand advantage.
Turning fragmentation into clarity
This is precisely where we spend our days, helping packaging businesses and brand owners turn a fragmenting regulatory landscape into a clear, defensible story that holds up in front of procurement teams, brand owners, the trade press and, increasingly, consumers. The rules will keep multiplying and diverging, but the businesses coming out ahead will not necessarily be the ones with the fullest compliance spreadsheets. Instead, they’ll be the ones who can explain, credibly and consistently, what their packaging does and why it stands up, in every market they sell into.
Switzerland’s new ordinance is simply the latest reminder that, in a fragmenting regulatory world, clarity has become the biggest competitive advantage.
If you are working out what a shifting European rulebook means for your packaging and your messaging, that is a conversation the Think B2B team would welcome. Get in touch with the Think B2B Marketing team at hello@thinkb2bmarketing.com
The Ordinance on Packaging (VerpV) is Switzerland’s new packaging law, adopted by the Federal Council on 24 June 2026 and applying from 1 January 2027. It replaces legislation dating from 2000 and, for the first time, sets a comprehensive framework covering packaging design, recycled content, recycling targets, extended producer responsibility and reporting for all packaging placed on the Swiss market.
VerpV applies from 1 January 2027, but its obligations phase in over several years. Design-for-recyclability requirements and eco-modulated EPR fees begin in 2030, take-back obligations for single-use plastic packaging and beverage cartons follow in 2031, and minimum recycling rates of 55% for plastic packaging and 70% for beverage cartons apply from 2032.
Both the Swiss Ordinance on Packaging and the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) pursue the same circular-economy goals, such as recyclable design, mandated recycled content and producer-pays funding, but through different rules. Switzerland takes a more outcomes-led approach, most notably by choosing not to mandate a deposit return scheme for beverage containers, whereas PPWR requires deposit return systems by 2029. Definitions, thresholds, timelines and reporting routes differ, so PPWR compliance does not automatically mean compliance in Switzerland.
No. The Swiss packaging ordinance deliberately leaves beverage containers outside a mandatory deposit return scheme. Instead, it sets binding recycling targets and holds a deposit or advance recycling fee in reserve, to be introduced only if those targets are missed: a key point of difference from the EU’s DRS requirement.
VerpV applies to any business placing packaging on the Swiss market, including manufacturers, importers, retailers, brand owners, and food and beverage producers, regardless of where they are based. UK and EU companies exporting packaged goods into Switzerland fall within scope, which is why pan-European brands need a packaging strategy that accounts for Swiss rules alongside PPWR and the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility framework.
The most efficient approach is to design packaging for the strictest market you sell into, so it comfortably meets the requirements of the others, rather than maintaining a separate specification for every jurisdiction. Businesses should also build robust packaging data streams, including bills of materials, recycled-content evidence and recyclability assessments, and make sure their sustainability and green claims are substantiated in each market. This is where specialist packaging marketing and communications support can turn a complex compliance picture into a clear, credible brand story.
