As early as 1993, the industry set up structures to meet the requirements of French and European legislation : the European directive on packaging and packaging waste (94/62/EC) dated December 20, 1994, is covered in French law by four decrees :

April 1, 1992 (92-377) on domestic packaging.

July 13, 1994 (94-609) on industrial and commercial packaging.

November 18, 1996 (96-1008) on departmental plans for waste.

and July 20, 1998 (98-638) on considerations of environmental requirements in the design and manufacture of packaging.
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Plastic packaging meets all the essential requirements of directive 94/62/EC for the full life cycle.

Plastic packaging complies with legislation and is respectful of the threshold limit values.

By cutting weight, optimising shapes and changing volumes, plastic packaging plays a major role in prevention and records ever improving scores for the container/content weight ratio.

In industry and distribution, much plastic packaging can be reused after processing, respecting regulations for user sectors (e.g. hygiene and safety).
The main type of packaging reused are :

A chart for the use of reusable plastic packaging has been elaborated (February 2001) by the plastic packaging manufacturers and logisticians, members of the French plastic packaging manufacturers association (CSEMP), in collaboration with Perifem, French technical association for retailers which regroups most of French retailers.
The Chart is available at CSEMP by request.

The choice of types of recovery is determined by different parameters:

Combination of different methods of processing need to be used for recovery to be considered optimal according to both economic and environmental criteria.