Packaging Law (2001)

This Law regulates packaging which is defined as the aggregate of products attached to goods, which are utilised in order to protect, contain, deliver, preserve, easily use, and sell raw materials and finished goods and to become acquainted with them in the whole cycle of the circulation of packaging from producer to consumer. The packaging and packaging material, which the service provider attaches to products and which after the provision of services returns to the service provider, shall also be considered packaging. Packaging is detached from the goods prior to consumption or during consumption. The purpose of the Law is to ensure the development of packaging production, the introduction of advanced packing technologies and the establishment of a rational packaging waste management system in the State and thereby reducing the undesirable impact of packaging waste on the environment, and for this purpose ensuring the introduction of a voluntary agreement principle in the management of packaging waste; promoting the reuse of packaging; facilitating the reduction of the volume of packaging materials, but not changing either the intended or existing functions thereof; facilitating and ensuring the recovery of packaging waste; and determining the requirements for the packaging permitted for placing on the market in Latvia.