What are the packaging labelling requirements in Spain and what do I need to do?

A Spanish law has introduced a set of voluntary and mandatory environmental labelling requirements for packaging sold on the Spanish market, that apply for all household packaging sold from January 1, 2025.

The main mandatory requirement is to label the packaging with the container in which the packaging waste must be deposited (e.g. blue for paper, yellow for plastics, etc.).

The main reason for including this label is to make it easier for consumers to understand how to sort their waste and thereby improve the sorting of packaging for waste collection in Spain. Packaging with this label must be collected in separate waste streams, such as paper or recyclable plastics. 

Anyone who makes packaged products available on the Spanish market. Hence, as a Zalando partner that places packaged products on the Spanish market for the first time (e.g. as manufacturer or importer), you are obliged to make sure that your product packaging carries the correct label. If you are selling products via a marketplace such as Zalando as a seller, you are placing the product on the Spanish market.

If you are not using Zalando Partner Logistics Services, you are also responsible for ensuring that your secondary (shipping) packaging carries the correct label. 

If you buy products from an upstream supplier in Spain, your supplier will be obliged to ensure that the product and packaging is labelled with the correct label.

The labelling requirements apply to all household packaging, meaning all packaging for products intended for use by individuals will end up in a private household. 

Thus, it applies to all primary (product) packaging (for example, shoeboxes, product wrapping, jewellery cards, hang tags, etc.) and all secondary (shipping) packaging (for example, shipping boxes, mailing boxes, shipping bags, polybags, etc.). Moreover, the requirements apply to packaging made from materials of any kind e.g. plastic, paper/cardboard, etc.

The law does not stipulate how the label should look or any symbols or logos that must be displayed. It only indicates what information it should include,  that it must appear on the packaging itself (attaching it with a sticker is also possible), be clearly visible and easily legible, as well as be adequately durable and adhesive, even after the packaging has been opened.

Therefore, there is a certain flexibility in designing the label that must be used. For example, it can be in colour or black and white, it can include text or only symbols, and you can use Spanish (recommended) or another language. However, the main recycling organisations in Spain have designed and use the following label (but please note that other designs can also be used as long as they contain the necessary information):

Since most products are not exclusively made for the Spanish market, we strongly recommend for the country code ES be included (see first example above), as well as using  Spanish as the language to use on the label. This is to avoid confusion for customers in other countries, where different sorting rules may apply.

Please check which recycling system you are registered with. The recycling systems provide the necessary information and are also available for further questions (for example see here, here, and here).

High-quality recycling can only succeed if there are waste streams that are sorted as best as possible. For the first step, it is up to the consumer to put the specific waste into the correct recycling container. This is where the label is intended to help the consumer. Spain thus wants to increase its recycling rate and support the circular economy.

Yes, the process outlined above is specifically for the Spanish market. For this reason we strongly recommend including the country abbreviation for Spain (ES) in the label to avoid confusion in other markets. You can find this in the examples provided above.