Why PFAS 50 ppm won’t be the end of it — it will change packaging work, not just paper

Once PPWR enters general application, the workload that grows fastest isn’t material swaps. It’s technical files, evidence trails, and revision control. Can printers price that burden as “operations,” not “production”?

The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) entered general application on August 12, 2026. For food-contact packaging, the law writes in a PFAS threshold of 50 ppm, and if total fluorine exceeds a set level, companies can be required to prove whether that fluorine comes from PFAS or not. From this moment on, export packaging work shifts its center of gravity—from “choosing materials” to “running evidence and revisions.”

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Translated from Japanese by AI. The Japanese original is authoritative.

Why PFAS 50 ppm won’t be the end of it — it will change packaging work, not just paper

You won’t wake up one day to an email that says, out of nowhere, “Please change the paper.” The painful part is the work that remains after you change the material.

PPWR (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) entered general application on August 12, 2026. For food-contact packaging, a PFAS threshold of 50 ppm (=50 mg/kg) is explicitly written into the text, and it states that polymeric PFAS are included as well. The regulation says that where total fluorine exceeds 50 mg/kg, the …

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