Glossary

Most packaging is discarded in its entirety after use and is, therefore, considered a single disposable unit. Packaging that is not discarded in its entirety but as several separate components consists of multiple disposable units. 
 
Whether different components or materials go through the sorting and recycling process together or separately can have a significant impact on recyclability. In practice, a single piece of packaging can consist of highly recyclable, moderately recycle and poorly recyclable disposable units at the same time.  
 
The KIDV goes by the principle that each packaging consists of a single disposable unit, unless: 
·         it consists of several unconnected components. 
·         part of the packaging must be permanently and completely removed in order to use the product. 
·         it features components, such as a lid, that can be detached by applying slight mechanical force 
 
Component detachment 
Manufacturers are required to show that a particular component will detach when slight mechanical force is applied and cannot rely simply on samples prepared in a lab. The test should be reproducible with units of packaging filled in at least three different production runs. 
 
Simple detachment test - release liner 
You can test whether a release liner detaches when slight mechanical force is applied by grabbing the open, empty packaging by the release liner and shaking it. If the foil comes off easily, it is deemed an individual disposable unit. At the start of the test, at least 25% of the release liner must still be attached to the rest of the packaging. 
 
Simple detachment test - lid 
You can test whether a lid detaches when slight mechanical force is applied by squeezing the empty packaging with the lid on. If the lid pops off completely, it is deemed an individual disposable unit. 
 
Detachment test - sleeve 
Some units of packaging feature a sleeve that is supposed to come off entirely when the packaging is compressed. This includes plastic cups with a perforated cardboard sleeve that is designed to detach when the cup is compressed. Utilize the Pollution and Compression Protocol to test whether cup and sleeve indeed detach from each other and behave like individual disposable units. 
 
Cardboard sleeve 
If plastic packaging comes with a cardboard sleeve around it that consumers do not undo, but which has been shown to come loose during collection and sorting, the sleeve and packaging behave as individual disposable units. It must then be taken into account that in this case the cardboard sleeve will end up in the wrong sorting stream and must be considered non-recyclable.