The EU’s new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) introduces additional requirements for businesses sending packaged goods into the European Union.

While these rules are intended to improve the sustainability and management of packaging waste, some of the compliance obligations are particularly difficult to accommodate for a very small shop like ours. Dealing with separate registrations and compliance arrangements across 27 EU countries we ship to creates costs and administrative work that are hugely disproportionate to the small number and value of orders we send.

Because of this, continuing to ship to EU countries under the new requirements is unfortunately not feasible for us at the moment.

We very much hope that workable solutions for small businesses will become available soon and that this can be a temporary pause rather than a permanent change. We’ll keep monitoring the situation.

If you’d like to understand more about why these requirements are particularly challenging for small traders, this article from Packaging Europe explains the issue well. There is also a petition calling for a moratorium on cross-border EPR fees for EU micro-businesses for anyone who would like to support changes that make these requirements more workable for small traders.

We’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding and for supporting the Postcrossing shop.