Across Latin America, governments are tightening packaging rules as they attempt to build circular systems despite major gaps in collection and recycling infrastructure.
The region is not a global leader in packaging recycling. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, about 230 million tonnes of municipal solid waste are generated each year, but only around 4% is recovered, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
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That gap is part of what makes the region important to the packaging industry.
Countries including Brazil, Chile and Colombia are strengthening extended producer responsibility (EPR), setting collection and recovery requirements and introducing measures covering recycled content and traceability.
At the same time, policymakers are confronting a feature that distinguishes many Latin American recycling systems from those in more developed markets: waste pickers already recover a substantial share of recyclable materials.
The result is a series of real-world experiments in how packaging can move from a linear model of make, use and discard towards systems in which materials are collected, processed and returned to production.
For packaging manufacturers, converters, recyclers and consumer goods companies, the significance extends beyond the growth potential of the region itself. Latin America is becoming a place to watch how regulation, packaging design, recycling infrastructure and existing collection networks interact when circular systems have to be built rather than simply expanded.
EPR is changing packaging economics
Extended producer responsibility is becoming an important driver of packaging circularity in Latin America.
EPR places responsibility for managing post-consumer waste on producers, although the precise financial and operational obligations vary between countries. The direction is increasingly towards measurable requirements covering collection, recovery and, in some cases, recycled content.
Chile provides one of the region’s clearest examples. Its Ley REP makes producers responsible for organising and financing the management of waste from designated priority products. Packaging and containers are among those categories, with producers required to meet collection and recovery targets through management systems.
The Chilean framework also gives waste pickers, known as recicladores de base, a role in packaging collection and recycling. This is significant because the effectiveness of an EPR system ultimately depends on whether discarded packaging can be collected and processed in the real world.
Brazil has taken a different regulatory route. In October 2025, the government established a national reverse-logistics system for plastic packaging covering manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers. The system is intended to improve the collection and recovery of plastic packaging while encouraging the use of recycled material.
The rules extend beyond recovery targets. They provide for collection points, sorting facilities, recycling operations and the production and sale of post-consumer recycled resin. They also prioritise the participation of cooperatives and other organisations representing waste pickers.
Packaging design forms part of the system, with manufacturers required to consider circular-economy characteristics including recyclability and durability when designing and producing products covered by the reverse-logistics system.
Colombia has also strengthened its packaging framework. Resolution 803 of 2024 established requirements covering plastic packaging and certain single-use plastic products, including targets for collection, recovery and recycled raw material in new products. It also introduced requirements for documenting and verifying material flows.
The approaches are not identical, but the direction is significant for packaging companies. Sustainability is increasingly becoming a question of regulatory compliance and supply-chain planning rather than simply a voluntary corporate target.
For manufacturers and brand owners, greater responsibility for post-consumer packaging can make material choice, packaging design, recycled content and recovery infrastructure increasingly important to both compliance and supply-chain planning.
Waste pickers are part of the recycling infrastructure
Regulation alone cannot explain Latin America’s emerging approach to packaging circularity.
The region has a large workforce already involved in recovering recyclable materials. Estimates put the number of waste pickers at around two million, with these workers contributing as much as half of recovered recyclable material from municipal waste in the region.
Their role exposes one of the central problems facing sustainable packaging: a package can be technically recyclable without actually being recycled.
For that to happen, someone must collect it. The material must then be sorted, transported and processed, while a functioning market must exist for the resulting recycled material.
Waste pickers and their organisations already perform important parts of this chain. The challenge for policymakers is how to incorporate those existing networks into more formal producer-responsibility and recycling systems without simply replacing them.
Brazil provides an important example. Its plastic-packaging reverse-logistics system provides for the participation of waste-picker cooperatives and other organisations in selective collection, sorting and other parts of the recovery chain. It also allows formal agreements under which these organisations can be paid for services.
This has practical implications for packaging companies. If producers are expected to finance or support packaging recovery, they need collection systems capable of delivering measurable results. Existing recycling networks can provide part of that capacity, particularly in areas where conventional municipal collection is limited.
The issue is therefore not simply social. It is also commercial and operational.
A circular packaging system requires a reliable flow of recovered material. Waste-picker organisations can provide an important link between discarded packaging and recyclers, while formal contracts, improved equipment, sorting facilities and traceability systems can help connect that activity to larger supply chains.
Latin America’s experience highlights a lesson that applies beyond the region: designing recyclable packaging is only one part of creating a circular packaging economy. The collection system, the people operating it and the market for recovered materials are equally important.
Infrastructure will determine whether circularity works
The expansion of EPR and reverse logistics is creating demand for infrastructure across the packaging value chain.
That includes collection points, sorting capacity, recycling plants, post-consumer recycled resin and traceability systems, as well as packaging designed to work within local recovery systems.
For packaging companies, this could create investment opportunities while exposing one of the biggest constraints on the region’s circular ambitions: regulation can create demand for recycling capacity faster than that infrastructure can be built.
Collection remains inconsistent in many markets, recycling capacity differs sharply between countries and regions, and the supply of high-quality recycled material may not always match demand. Markets for recovered materials can also be fragmented.
These constraints could become increasingly important as producers face higher recovery or recycled-content requirements. Competition for suitable recycled feedstock, for example, could affect material costs and sourcing strategies, while insufficient collection or processing capacity could make compliance more difficult.
Traceability is another challenge. As regulation places greater responsibility on producers, businesses need credible ways to demonstrate how much material has been collected, where it has been processed and whether recovery targets have been achieved.
The region also has an energy advantage. Renewables account for about 60% of the electricity mix in Latin America and the Caribbean, around twice the global average, according to the International Energy Agency.
A relatively renewable electricity supply could help reduce the operational emissions associated with recycling, material processing and packaging conversion. It does not make packaging circular by itself, but it could support lower-emission recovery systems as recycling capacity expands.
The critical question is whether increasingly ambitious regulation can translate into greater collection and recycling on the ground.
Recovery targets will have limited impact if collection coverage, sorting capacity, recycling infrastructure and markets for recovered material fail to expand alongside them. Implementation will therefore determine whether Latin America’s emerging packaging policies become effective circular systems or remain largely regulatory ambitions.
For packaging companies, that creates both risk and opportunity. Producers may face higher compliance costs and greater responsibility for packaging after use, while recyclers, materials suppliers, technology providers and waste-management businesses could benefit from demand for new infrastructure and services.
Governments will also have to determine how existing recycling networks fit into those systems. Formalising packaging recovery without incorporating waste pickers risks weakening collection networks that already provide substantial quantities of recyclable material.
Success will consequently depend on more than setting targets. It will require investment, enforcement, functioning markets for recovered materials and cooperation between producers, municipalities, recyclers and the people who already collect packaging.
Latin America is not a finished model for packaging circularity. Recovery rates remain low, infrastructure gaps are substantial and the effectiveness of newer regulations will depend heavily on implementation.
But those constraints are precisely what make the region worth watching.
Brazil, Chile and Colombia are testing different ways to combine producer responsibility, packaging design, recycling infrastructure, recycled-content requirements and existing collection networks in markets where circular systems are still being built.
Some approaches will prove more effective than others. Their value for the global packaging industry will lie not only in the amount of material recovered, but in what they reveal about the conditions required for circular packaging systems to function.
The central lesson is that recyclability begins with packaging design but does not end there. Circularity ultimately depends on whether there is an economically viable system — and a workforce — capable of collecting, sorting, processing and returning those materials to production.
Latin America’s contribution to packaging circularity may therefore prove practical rather than symbolic: showing what it takes to turn packaging designed for recycling into packaging that is actually recycled.
