According to the law, packaging is defined as products made from any material intended for the containment, protection, handling, delivery or presentation of goods, ranging from raw materials to processed products, which are transferred from the manufacturer to the distributor or end consumer.

Assistance with classification is provided by the responsible Central Agency Packaging Register (ZSVR) in its 7th topic paper “Verifying the packaging status” at Delineation between packaging and non-packaging.pdf (verpackungsregister.org). If this does not achieve the desired result or if you wish to obtain a legally binding determination, a free classification application can be submitted in accordance with Section 26 of the Packaging Act. If an applicant disagrees with the ZSVR's classification decision, they can take legal action.

Currently, the administrative courts of first instance in Cologne and Osnabrück have dealt with such appeals and have confirmed the classification decisions of the ZSVR without exception. The courts did not share the view of the respective manufacturers that the permanent carrier bags, pacifier boxes, and eyeglass cases at issue were products. They are rather sales packaging for which there is a registration and system participation obligation according to the ZSVR's catalogue of packaging subject to system participation. They must therefore be registered accordingly in LUCID and accounted for via a participation contract in a dual system such as Der Grüne Punkt.

The above court rulings show that in fact more products than expected are to be regarded as packaging subject to system participation and that the assessment that a container serves the long-term storage of an item is often not accurate. In order to avoid expensive post-licensing, we therefore recommend checking whether the distinction between product and packaging of items placed on the market for the first time has been made in accordance with the law.