Who Is Considered Producer Under the PPWR? 5 Practicle Examples

Written by Júlio Junqueira | Jun 15, 2026 12:30:42 PM

As we have seen in the last article, establishing who are the economic actors in the PPWR is decisive to reach compliance with this legislation. It is crucial to understand that the terms “Producer” and “Manufacturer” carry two different concepts in light of the PPWR: While “Manufacturer” is one of the economic actors, “Producer” can be considered an “extra status” that the manufacturer, importer or distributor might carry on the top of their responsibilities.

Therefore, our effort to clearly define which responsibilities each actor carries does not stop with establishment of which economic actors they are. It is necessary to find out, who will carry the “producer status” as well.

To define who is the “producer” in a certain constellation, some more facts need to be considered, such as:

Where does the packaging become waste?
Only if it becomes waste in that Member State, will a producer exist.
Who made it available for the first time in the territory of this Member State?
This is a decisive question to know which one of the economic actors will be considered “producer”

Art. 3(15) foresees 5 scenarios to establish who is the producer.
Hover over the scenario images to reveal the answer.

As we can see throughout the different scenarios foreseen in Article 3(15) and the examples made to illustrate them, some supply chains will offer a clear answer, and some others will require further investigation and might even have the result strongly changed because of some details that must be taken into consideration.

A further lesson is that the “producer status” is connected to a certain packaging. Maybe one economic actor is the producer of some packaging but not of another one. However, this discussion deserves another article for itself.

One last question is still not thematized here though:
What are the consequences of being the “Producer”?

The producer will have to carry the Extended Producer Responsibilities, which include the registration, reporting and the financial contribution according to quantity of packaging it makes available within the territory of a Member State.

The key-learnings are that the terms “manufacturer” and “producer” are definitely not synonyms in the context of the PPWR and that companies need to carefully investigate not only which economic actors they are according to this legislation but also if they carry the “producer” status, which leads to carrying all the EPR-responsibilities as well.

If you are unsure whether your company is considered a producer under the PPWR, we are happy to help you assess your obligations and define the next steps.

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