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Tunisia: ECO-Lef is a recovery system, not a located sale-condition mark
Tunisia has the continent’s longest-running public packaging-recovery system, ECO-Lef, under decrees of 1997 and 2001, and a 2020 restriction on conventional single-use plastic bags. The legal object located for this report is a recovery and eco-tax system, not a Kenyan-style on-pack word. Treat display of the ECO-Lef mark as scheme-contractual until a marking article is shown.
ECO-LefPrescribed or scheme wording — not production artwork
Wording lock-ups and sourced marks are for identification and commentary. They are not production artwork.
The question this report answers
Tunisia has the continent’s longest-running public packaging-recovery system, ECO-Lef, and a 2020 decree restricting conventional single-use plastic bags. ECO-Lef is often described as if every participating bottle carried a required mark. The legal object located for this report is a recovery and eco-tax system, not a Kenyan-style on-pack word. That distinction is the Atlas’s specialty, and it is the reason Tunisia is in this series.
Decree No. 97-1102 of 2 June 1997, as amended by Decree No. 2001-843 of 10 April 2001, sets the conditions for recovery and management of packaging bags and used packaging. The National Waste Management Agency (ANGeD) administers ECO-Lef. Importers and local producers of plastic packaging pay a specific eco-tax that finances collection. The system targets post-consumer plastic and metal packaging above a capacity threshold — PET beverage bottles, detergent containers, films and bags, metal cans — not every fibre carton on the shelf.
Legal status at a glance
| Requirement | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| ECO-Lef recovery system and eco-tax | mandatory | Producers and importers of covered packaging pay into the public system. Off-pack financing and collection, in force since the late 1990s. |
| ECO-Lef on-pack mark | mixed | A system identifier appears on some participating packaging. A clause making that mark a general condition of lawful sale, in the manner of LN 181 or Triman, was not located in the 1997/2001 decrees. Treat display as scheme-contractual until a marking article is shown. |
| Single-use plastic bag restriction (2020) | mandatory | From 1 March 2020, manufacture, import and use of conventional single-use plastic bags are prohibited, with UNEP/MAP-facing official description of the measure. A product ban, not a label. |
| General sorting pictogram for all packaging | none | No Tunisian Triman located. |
What ECO-Lef is
“ECO” is ecology; “Lef” is packaging. ANGeD’s system pays collectors for recovered post-consumer packaging and channels material to recyclers. That is a public reverse-logistics arrangement financed by an eco-tax. A Green Dot comparison is useful and limited: both are financing marks in origin. Tunisia’s decrees do not, on the text reviewed, convert the logo into a recyclability claim or a destination instruction. If a bottle prints ECO-Lef, the honest reading is participation in the recovery system, not “this pack is recycled in Tunis”.
Professional and NGO accounts have warned that the system has been under strain. Strain is not repeal. It is a reason not to treat the mark as evidence of actual recycling performance.
Primary sources and verification
Tunisia. Décret n° 97-1102 du 2 juin 1997, as amended by décret n° 2001-843 du 10 avril 2001.
UNEP/MAP. Ban on single-use plastic bags introduced in Tunisia, 2020. Open source
ECO-Lef’s legal basis is the 1997/2001 decrees as described by ANGeD-facing secondary sources; the decree PDFs were not line-parsed for a marking article on this pass. Absence of a located marking clause is stated as such, not as proof that no logo is ever licensed. Last verified: 24 August 2026.