On 10 February 2020, the French government signed the Anti-Waste law called, AGEC law n°2020-105 (regarding a Circular Economy and the Fight Against Waste). The law contains more than a hundred articles including new obligations, and prohibitions to be implemented by 2040. These measurements will have a big impact on all sectors of activity including the cosmetic sector. On top of that, on 29 April 2022, the decree (Décret n° 2022-748) was published relating to consumer information on the environmental qualities and characteristics of waste-generating products

Demands in the Cosmetic sector

• The use of the Triman logo and sorting information is mandatory for household packages sold in France. All packages should bear this label regardless of their recyclability. The harmonized label is mandatory from 1 January 2022. However, there is an extended period until 15 June 2023 for marketers to sell existing stocks of packaging manufactured or imported before 9 September 2022.

• By 2040, single-use plastic packaging shall be eliminated.

• By 2025, 100% of plastics should be recycled. Well-known non-recyclable plastics include cling film, blister packaging, plastic-coated wrapping paper, composite plastic, bioplastics, and polycarbonate.

• France mandates the use of reusable packaging. Reused packaging must be recyclable. The goal is to reach a proportion of 5% of reused packaging marketed in France by 2023, expressed in sales units or equivalent sales units, and 10% of reused packaging put on the market in France in 2027, expressed in sales units or equivalent sales units.
  • Larger retail stores must provide customers with clean containers suitable for reuse and accept that consumers bring their own containers.

• Plastic products and packaging whose compostability can only be obtained in an industrial unit cannot bear the mention “compostable".

• Compostable plastic products and packaging in domestic or industrial composting must bear the words “Do not throw away in nature”.

• It is prohibited to include on a product or packaging the words “biodegradable”, “respectful of the environment", or any other equivalent statement.

• The use of mineral oils on the packaging is prohibited.

• The producer, importer, or distributor of waste-generating products should inform the consumer electronically (in a reusable dematerialized format, accessible free of charge at the time of the act of purchase) of the presence of harmful substances, the percentage of recycled material, the use of renewable resources, durability, compostability, presence of plastic microfibers, reparability, possibilities of reuse, and recyclability.

• The presence of a harmful substance must be disclosed with the mention “contains a substance with proven or presumed or suspected endocrine disrupting properties” or "contains a substance of very high concern”, if that substance is present at a concentration higher than 0.1% (in weight) in the formulation and packaging. The statement is accompanied by the name of the hazardous substances (i.e., substances whose endocrine disrupting properties are qualified as proven or presumed by ANSES) or the substances included in the Candidate list of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC)).

• The display of a pictogram "forbidden to pregnant women" on certain categories of products containing substances of an ED nature is currently recommended, and may be required by the regulatory authority– (Art. 13 AGEC Law ANSES recommendations to come).

• Recyclability:
  • Recyclability information must be disclosed with the mention “mostly recyclable product” if the product fulfills all the following recyclability requirements:
    • The ability to effectively collect waste at the state level
    • The ability to sort the waste
    • The absence of elements or substances that would disrupt the recycling process or limit the usability of the material once recycled
    • The recycled material produced by the implemented recycling processes represents more than 50% of the weight of the collected waste.
    • The ability to be recycled at an industrial scale, including via a guarantee that the quality of the material obtained is sufficient to ensure that it will be used and that there is enough capacity to start industrial recycling.
  • If the product fulfills all these requirements and if the recycled material produced represents more than 95% of the weight of the collected waste, then the mentioned “entirely recyclable product” can be used. When the ability to be recycled corresponds to recycling of materials mainly reincorporated into products of an equivalent nature that meet an identical use and destination without functional loss of the material, the producer may complete the information on recyclability by stating “recyclable product into a product of the same nature” or “recyclable packaging into a packaging of the same nature”.
  • Note that, the eco-organization to which the producer has transferred its obligation of extended responsibility can calculate the recyclability of the product according to a harmonized method. When the producer has set up an individual system of extended responsibility, he determines this information under his responsibility.

• The content of the recycled materials should be specified. Statement: “product containing at least [%] recycled content" or Statement "packaging containing at least [%] recycled content".

• Moreover, the AGEC law prohibits the disposal of unsold non-food items. For companies in the cosmetics industry, this means that they must donate (for example to associations) or recycle their unsold daily hygiene products. This obligation does not apply to:
  • Products whose material recovery is prohibited, whose disposal is prescribed or whose reuse, and recycling involve serious health or safety risks;
  • Hygiene and childcare products, that have remained unsold must necessarily be reused, except for products whose minimum durability date is less than three months;
  • Products for which there is no technical solution for reuse or recycling.

• Lastly, every producer selling or importing products in France that fall within an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme (e.g. household packaging (including cosmetic products packaging)) should contribute to the management of the waste generated by their products. Thus, he must:
  • register with a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) e.g., CITEO, as well as report the quantity of products sold, and pay the respective fee to the PRO.
  • register with the ADEME and get the new Unique ID number. Registration with the ADEME is only possible after registering with a PRO. After registration, the Unique ID number will be issued from the ADEME to the PRO. In most cases, once you are registered with a PRO, they will take care of the registration to ADEME for their members. Note that one Unique ID number will be issued per waste stream. If a producer is registered with three different waste streams (e.g. WEEE, batteries, packaging), the producer will receive three different Unique Identification Numbers.

Source1, Source 2