Packaging EPR in Germany — LUCID and the dual system

Germany has the strictest packaging register in Europe and the one most likely to stop a delivery. Under the Verpackungsgesetz (VerpackG), anyone who places packaging on the German market must be registered in LUCID before the first shipment — not after it, and not in the same week.

Registration is free, done online, and takes about twenty minutes. Not being registered is a sales ban: the goods may not lawfully be placed on the market at all, and marketplaces are required to check.

Two obligations, not one

This is where the cost sits, and where most confusion starts.

1. Register in LUCID. Free. Required for all packaging types, including transport and industrial packaging. You receive a registration number.

2. Contract with a dual system. Paid, per kilogram, by material. Required only for sales packaging that ends up with a private final consumer — “systembeteiligungspflichtige Verpackung”, packaging subject to system participation.

A company placing only business-to-business transport packaging on the German market registers but does not contract. A company selling consumer goods does both, and reports the same volumes to both.

Getting this wrong is expensive in either direction. Paying a dual system for industrial packaging is money for nothing. Not paying for consumer packaging is the thing the register exists to catch.

Which of your packaging is which

What you place on the German market	LUCID	Dual system
Pallets and stretch film moving goods between businesses	yes	no
Corrugated cases delivered to another business	yes	no
Bin liners sold in a case to a facilities company	yes	no
The same bin liners on a retail shelf in a consumer pack	yes	yes
Outer packaging around goods sold online to consumers	yes	yes

The line is the private final consumer, and “private” is doing work: a hospital, a school and an office are treated as equivalent to households for some packaging under the scheme, which is a distinction worth checking with your adviser rather than assuming.

What you actually do

1. Register in LUCID at the Zentrale Stelle, before the first delivery. You need your company details, your VAT identification number and the brand names you place on the market.
2. If you have system-participation packaging, contract with one of the dual systems and declare your expected annual volumes by material.
3. Report volumes — the same figures to LUCID and to your dual system. They are compared, and a mismatch is a query.
4. Submit the annual declaration where your volumes exceed the audit thresholds; below them, the reporting is lighter.

Penalties

Fines run to substantial sums — the frequently quoted upper figure is €200,000 for failing to register or to participate in a system — and they are secondary to the real consequence, which is that unregistered packaging may not be sold.

A distributor whose supplier is unregistered has a problem too: they cannot lawfully sell on packaging that was not lawfully placed on the market.

Our side of it

We are not registered in LUCID and could not be: we are an agent, we take no title to the goods, and nothing we do is a placing on the German market.

The transport packaging — the pallets the goods travel on and the film securing them — is placed on the German market by the plant that shipped the consignment. We establish before the first order whether that plant holds a LUCID registration for it, and get the number in writing rather than assumed. It is a question worth settling early, because a distributor cannot lawfully sell on packaging that was not lawfully placed on the market, and by the time somebody asks it is an awkward conversation.

The packaging you buy is your placing on the market when you sell it on or use it. What we make sure you get is the material and weight breakdown that makes your return possible: polyethylene, paper and board, and wood, in kilograms, per delivery, and as a quarterly summary if you ask for one. Most suppliers give a delivery note with a case count on it, which is no help at all in February when the return is due.

What this means for what you buy

The LUCID registration is yours, and the weights that go into it come from the specification. Ask for them at quotation stage: every quotation we obtain for stretch film, bin liners or catering film carries packaging weights by material, which is what the return is built from.