Citation: Di Foggia, G.; Beccarello, M. An Overview of Packaging Waste Models in Some European Countries. Recycling 2022, 7, 38. https:// doi.org/10.3390/recycling7030038 Academic Editors: Francesco Paolo La Mantia and Beatrice Castellani Received: 19 May 2022 Accepted: 6 June 2022 Published: 10 June 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). recycling Article An Overview of Packaging Waste Models in Some European Countries Giacomo Di Foggia * and Massimo Beccarello Department of Business and Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy; massimo.beccarello@unimib.it * Correspondence: giacomo.difoggia@unimib.it Abstract: Efficient packaging waste management systems are essential considering recent revisions of the European legislation on packaging waste management that sets ambitious targets. European rules aim to deal with the increasing quantities of packaging waste, which cause environmental problems. Consequently, it is necessary to identify functional packaging waste management systems to achieve these targets effectively and efficiently. However, given the heterogeneity of the different packaging management systems, policymakers, scholars, and industry operators struggle to have a comparative view. The number of non-harmonized laws in force across countries, autonomous recycling targets, and constant updates are prominent problems that make it difficult to obtain comparable information for research, business, and policymaking. To fill this gap, our research question consists of assigning responsibilities for prevention, collection, recycling, and recovery and an overview of some models at a glance with respect to the general governance and functioning of the system. We base our research on a multiple-case design since more cases are examined using complementary data collection methods, analysis of the previous literature, reports, legislation, and business and institutional websites. Our results provide insights from the following cases: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, and Italy. In addition, policy implications emerge as our insights help overcome barriers in the European market’s development caused by the different rules on packaging management and design serving policymakers that aim to harmonize the management of packaging waste. The paper also contains managerial implications for circular economy business models that can be used by managers who aim to design or upgrade their business models according to both recent legislative upgrades and packaging management systems. Keywords: EPR; recycling; waste management; circular economy; waste prevention; recovery targets 1. Introduction Environmentally sound management of packaging waste is a prominent topic world- wide due to potential environmental risks deriving from suboptimal management [1]. It is no wonder that the governance of packaging waste management systems is one of the pillars of national strategies for the circular economy since packaging waste has increased with a wide range of direct and indirect environmental consequences [2]. Focusing on the governance mechanism and the main actors involved, we review some European packag- ing waste management systems, identifying common elements and main differences in order to add pieces of information to design ever more circular-economy-compliant waste management systems [3]. Efficient waste management systems are essential in light of the recent revision of the European legislation on waste that sets higher recycling targets by 2030. Consequently, it is necessary to identify functional packaging waste management systems to achieve these ambitious targets effectively and efficiently. For example, the EU’s circular economy action plan aims to support the reduction in plastic waste, and a key element of it is the improvement of the economics and quality of recycled plastic, establishing the closed-loop recycling of food packaging materials [4]. Recycling 2022, 7, 38. https://doi.org/10.3390/recycling7030038 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/recycling