In Germany, certain packaging is required to participate in a system. This includes retail, grouped and shipment packaging. The company that is the first to hand over – to third parties in Germany – retail and/or grouped packaging that is filled with goods and typically accumulates as waste with private final consumers (i.e. private households or comparable sources of waste generation), for the purpose of distribution, consumption or use is responsible for fulfilling this system participation requirement.
To fulfil the system participation requirement, the companies under obligation (defined as 'producers' in the Verpackungsgesetz (Packaging Act)) have to enter into a 'system participation agreement' with one or more system(s). They are required to indicate the material type, along with the mass of the packaging and the registration number the Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (Central Agency Packaging Register – ZSVR) assigned to them in the LUCID Packaging Register. Furthermore, when companies under obligation report packaging volumes to their system, they have to submit the exact same data report to the LUCID Packaging Register. The first such data report has to be submitted when the system participation agreement is entered into. The system participation fee serves to pay for nationwide packaging collection, sorting and recycling.
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