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Fost Plus sorting artwork: voluntary, Belgian, and not a recyclability claim
Status
Voluntary scheme artwork for household packaging placed on the Belgian market. The Interregional Cooperation Agreement of 4 November 2008 imposes EPR reporting and take-back on the responsible company; it does not prescribe that every household pack carry the Fost Plus logos. Use of the logos is a scheme and commercial choice. The instruction is a Belgian stream (PMD, paper-cardboard, glass), not a recyclability verdict and not the Green Dot.
PMD · papier-karton · glasPrescribed or scheme wording — not production artwork
Green Dot ≠ sortingPrescribed or scheme wording — not production artwork
Wording lock-ups and sourced marks are for identification and commentary. They are not production artwork.
Role and legal character
Fost Plus is the accredited organisation through which many companies meet household-packaging EPR in Belgium. Valipac covers industrial and commercial packaging. The legal instrument is the Interregional Cooperation Agreement of 4 November 2008, as amended, supervised by EPRiBEL. The Agreement’s responsible-company duties are reporting, take-back and, where applicable, prevention plans. They are not a clause that every PMD bottle must print the PMD logo.
Fost Plus’s own member-services page is the scheme’s account of the artwork: “Do you want to help consumers sort your packaging correctly? To do so, you can use the Fost Plus on-pack sorting instructions and logos.” A full range of graphic elements is offered for small and large packs, in various languages, for PMD, paper-cardboard and glass, with a style guide. “You can use” is not “you must print.” Contract and retailer specification can tighten that. The Agreement still does not.
What the logos assert
A Fost Plus sorting instruction names a Belgian collection stream. PMD is the blue bag for plastic packaging, metal packaging and drink cartons as that stream is defined in the current Belgian sorting rules, not “recyclable in the abstract.” Paper-cardboard and glass are the other two household streams. The instruction has to match the component and the current acceptance rules. A theoretically recyclable film that PMD does not take is a residual-waste component in this system, whatever a How2Recycle or OPRL file says about another market.
Multilingual presentation is operational in Belgium. The style guide, not this article, is the artwork file. This library does not reconstruct the logos. A photograph of a Belgian SKU is not a production file.
Green Dot and PPWR
The Green Dot on a Belgian pack has always been a participation mark, not a sorting instruction. Presenting it as one is a claims error the Belgium report already records. Fost Plus has announced the end of its PRO EUROPE licence in response to PPWR Article 12(9): by 12 February 2027, EPR participation may be identified only through a corresponding symbol in a QR code or other standardised open digital marking. Manage the Dot’s removal as a licence and regulatory transition. It is not evidence that Belgian take-back has ended, and it is not a reason to drop a Fost Plus sorting instruction that a contract still requires.
The future Union composition and receptacle labels, on PPWR Article 12’s later-of formula, will sit on the same packs. A Fost Plus PMD logo is not that Union label, and the Union label is not yet a licence to retire Belgian stream artwork. Until the implementing act exists, the Union date is a formula. The Belgium country report remains the EPR account; this page is the artwork layer.
Traps
The first trap is treating omission of the logos as the same offence as failing to report tonnes to Fost Plus. EPRiBEL’s published example of a €500 administrative fine per commenced tonne concerns take-back performance, not a missing PMD drawing. The second is printing French Info-tri or Dutch Weggooiwijzer on a Belgian SKU as a translation. The streams are not the same. The third is leaving a Green Dot on a pack as a sorting cue after the licence ends. The fourth is a dual-market Benelux lock-up that assumes Fost Plus PMD and Dutch PMD are identical.
Primary sources
Fost Plus. Member services: on-pack sorting instructions and logos; style-guide download. Open source
EPRiBEL. The Cooperation Agreement of 4 November 2008. Open source
Fost Plus. PPWR labelling transition and Green Dot. Open source
European Union. Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Art. 12(9). Open source
Note on sources and verification
The Belgium country report is the EPR account. This article is the artwork object that report refuses to treat as a statute. No millimetre figure is taken from the style-guide PDF. Last verified: 23 August 2026.