A plain paper carton pays up to 18 times more in one euro scheme than another, and a coating can multiply it again

Nine tables, one material

Exhibit 2 sets out the line each scheme applies to plain household paper and board in 2026, as printed, with the unit, the date of the table and the 2027 value where one is published. SPI converts per-kilogram rates to per tonne by multiplying by 1,000 and leaves the rest as printed.

Three points stand out. First, no scheme in the nine sets a separate household line for corrugated board and another for folding carton. Fost Plus comes closest, with three paper-cardboard codes split by fibre share (002-A at 100% fibre, 002-B at 95% or more and 002-C at 85% or more, or recyclable under the CEPI protocol for standard mills), all at EUR 0.1503 per kg (Fost Plus Green Dot rates 2026). Outside the euro area, Recycle BC in Canada does split the two, at CAD 0.60 per kg for corrugated cardboard and CAD 0.37 for boxboard, which shows the split is a design choice rather than a necessity (SPI calculator rows, Recycle BC 2026 fee schedule).

Second, two schemes have already published 2027 increases on the paper line and three have published a freeze. Ecoembes moves non-SUP paper and board from EUR 0.115 to EUR 0.117 per kg and SUP paper with plastic content to EUR 0.128 (Ecoembes price page, consulted 27 October 2026). Valorlux moves PV02 from EUR 0.0389 to EUR 0.0404 per kg on tariffs approved at its October 2026 general assembly and announced on 13 October 2026 (Valorlux). Fost Plus, Verpact and ARA hold paper at the 2026 rate.

Third, four 2027 values are still missing. CONAI’s table shows columns from 1 January, 1 July and 1 October 2026 only, with no 2027 paper value. SPV’s 2026 table is the latest SPV paper table SPI has found. Repak has posted a 2027 Regular Membership Rates sheet (QF 628) whose rates SPI has not yet confirmed. SPI has not yet confirmed Citeo’s 2027 tariff against Citeo’s own guide.

Where the fee bases differ

A euro is a euro, but the tonne behind it is not always the same tonne. Exhibit 3 lists the differences a buyer has to correct for before comparing a paper line across schemes.

The Italian difference is the largest in practice. CONAI’s Contributo Ambientale is not filed by the brand on what it sells; it is applied by the last producer or trader of empty packaging when it sells to the first user, so a cereal brand meets it on its carton supplier’s invoice (CONAI EPR fee pages, SPI Italy fee-market note). The Irish difference is structural. Repak’s 2026 sheet charges the material manufacturer EUR 1.00, the converter EUR 1.00, the brand holder or importer EUR 41.60 and the retailer EUR 2.00 per tonne of recycled paper and cardboard, for EUR 45.60 in total (Repak 2026 fees sheet). The Dutch difference is scope: Verpact’s EUR 0.017 per kg applies to all packaging, household and commercial alike, while Citeo’s EUR 0.2581 applies to household packaging only.

How each scheme treats coatings, laminates and composites

A plain carton is the easy case. Most cereal cartons carry a print varnish, many food cartons carry a barrier, and some are laminated to plastic or aluminium. Exhibit 4 shows the rule each scheme publishes for paper that is no longer pure fibre.

Italy grades. CONAI’s paper bands have applied since 1 July 2025, when type B and type C composites were each split into a certified and a non-certified band. CONAI’s December 2024 release defines type A as paper of 90% to 95% of the pack’s weight, type B as 80% to 90%, type C as 60% to 80% and type D as under 60% or not stated, with liquid packaging board (CPL) in its own band. After the base cut of 1 October 2025, the 2026 values run EUR 45, EUR 45, EUR 55, EUR 70, EUR 115, EUR 110, EUR 155 and EUR 285 per tonne for bands 1 to 6 (CONAI EPR fee table, consulted 27 October 2026). Certified bands need an Aticelca 501 attestation at level A, B or C (CONAI attestation instructions).

Spain penalises the fibre share. Ecoembes’ 2026 guide applies a 10% penalty to packaging made with paper and board below 85%, applied to the paper share only, with other materials at their own price; packaging at or above 85% is not modulated and pays the paper price. A pack the consumer can separate by hand and that carries a separation message is not penalised, and fibre packaging earns no bonus. The proceeds fund studies and pilots on paper-based composites (Ecoembes Guía de ecomodulación 2026, p. 28).

Belgium and Austria have cliffs. Fost Plus code 012 covers composite elements in which paper-cardboard is the greatest weight but total fibre is under 85%, at EUR 4.4190 per kg, and obstructive code D015 covers paper or board with a plastic coating on all sides, other than beverage cartons (Fost Plus Green Dot rates 2026). ARA sets its threshold at 80% for paper, cardboard, paperboard and corrugated board, and adds that papers coated on both sides, or waxed, are always composites (ARA composite packaging fact sheet, 24 November 2022).

France and the Netherlands split the pack. Citeo’s guide says each material family has its own tariff to apply to each packaging unit, and lists a 10% malus for cartons metallised on all faces; the armoured paper-carton malus was removed for 2026 (Citeo guide 2026, pp. 10, 28 and 33). Verpact’s 2026 policy says a producer owes the fee on each of the materials in a non-separable composite and declares them separately (Beleid Verpact 2026, p. 13).

Ireland and Portugal test recycling or bonus criteria. Repak’s 2026 sheet carries recycled composite at EUR 165.70 and non-recycled composite at EUR 616.22 per tonne for the brand holder, but its sheet and member guide do not define which coated boards fall into each. SPV prints a bonificado value of EUR 0.2794 per kg for paper that meets every 2026 eco-modulation criterion, 10% below base, and its table does not list the criteria or a composite line (SPV Tabela VPV 2026). Valorlux’s PV02 line covers paper of 85% or more; SPI has not yet confirmed which Valorlux code applies to paper below that share.

The composite cliff, priced

Exhibit 5 takes one 40 g carton and prices it per tonne in each scheme at four constructions: plain board, a one-side coated board at 88% fibre, a composite at 70% fibre and one at 55% fibre. Plastic is the only other material assumed.

The working is short. SPI calculation: at 70% fibre, Spain prices 0.7 tonnes at the penalised paper rate of EUR 126.50 and 0.3 tonnes at EUR 1,243, for EUR 461.45; the Netherlands prices 0.7 tonnes at EUR 17 and 0.3 tonnes at EUR 1,320, for EUR 407.90; France prices 0.7 tonnes at EUR 258.10 and 0.3 tonnes at EUR 770.10, for EUR 411.70. Italy, Belgium and Austria price the whole pack on one line.

Two results run against intuition. The Netherlands, the cheapest market for plain board, is one of the steepest for a coated one, because the component split prices plastic at 78 times the paper rate; even a one-side coating at 12% of weight lifts the Dutch rate per tonne of pack 10.2 times, from EUR 17 to EUR 173.36. And France, the second dearest market for plain board, is the gentlest for a composite on this measure, because its paper rate is already high and its plastic lines are about three times it.

What drives the gaps

The schemes publish the arithmetic behind their rates in different detail, but the same three forces appear.

Collection and sorting cost. Citeo’s 2024 accounts put 78% of contributions into support to local authorities for collection and sorting, with 7% to litter and out-of-home waste and 3% to reuse (Citeo guide 2026, p. 2). Fost Plus says its rates rest on the real cost deficit of each recycled material, comparing actual costs and revenue with the volumes placed on the market (Fost Plus, Packaging EPR rates, what, why and how). The Irish government’s release on Repak’s ten-year approval, dated 16 January 2026, describes the same loop: producers pay fees, with higher fees for materials that are harder to recycle, and Repak pays them out as subsidies to collectors who collect, sort, recover and recycle the waste.

Fibre value. Paper is the material with the strongest bale market, which is why its net cost can fall even as collection grows. CONAI cut its paper base from EUR 65 to EUR 45 per tonne on 1 October 2025, citing recovered paper prices in 2024 and the first half of 2025 that ran better than expected, despite more paper and board arriving from municipal collection (CONAI, 7 July 2025). That one decision explains much of Italy’s place near the bottom of Exhibit 1.

Eco-modulation design. Where a scheme puts its modulation decides whether paper carries it. Italy loads modulation onto composite bands; Belgium and Austria onto a single composite line far above the paper rate; France onto percentage maluses and the separate pricing of each material; Spain onto a 10% penalty on the paper share. A scheme that modulates mostly through plastic, such as Verpact with its plastic discount steps, leaves its paper rate as a single flat line.

Beverage and composite cartons, briefly

Liquid cartons are the one paper-based format every scheme prices on its own line, and SPI covers them in full in a separate SPI Ledger piece published today. For context, the 2026 lines are EUR 467.90 per tonne at Citeo (brique), EUR 115 at CONAI (CPL), EUR 533 at Ecoembes (non-SUP), EUR 514 at SPV (ECAL, urban flow), EUR 808 at Fost Plus, EUR 920 at Verpact, EUR 1,020 at ARA (household) and EUR 281 at Valorlux (scheme tables, consulted 27 October 2026). Verpact moves cartons to EUR 1,110 and Valorlux to EUR 384 for 2027. SPI has not found a separate carton line on Repak’s 2026 sheet, which prices composites as recycled or non-recycled.

A framework: four ways to price a coated carton

Exhibit 7 sets the plain board rate against the composite rule, using two SPI cut-offs: a plain rate above or below EUR 100 per tonne, and the four rule types from Exhibit 4.

Low rate, graded or split (Italy, the Netherlands). Plain board is cheap, so the absolute bill is small, but in the Netherlands a coating is priced as plastic, so cutting coat weight pays more than any paper choice. In Italy the lever is paperwork as much as design: CONAI’s attestation instructions require the user to send the supplier the information that sets the band before purchase.

High rate, graded or split (Spain, France). Weight is the main lever. In France the 10% recycled fibre reduction for packaging with more than 50% recycled fibre is the largest paper discount available in the nine schemes, alongside SPV’s bonificado.

Cliff markets (Belgium, Austria). The lever is the threshold. A carton at 86% fibre pays EUR 150.30 per tonne in Belgium, and one at 84% can pay EUR 4,419. A two-side coated board pays EUR 1,140 in Austria whatever its fibre share.

Test markets (Ireland, Portugal). The lever sits outside design: whether a composite counts as recycled in Ireland, and whether a paper pack meets every SPV criterion in Portugal.

Worked example: a cereal box and a shipper per 1,000 units

SPI priced two common paper packs per 1,000 units in each scheme: a 40 g folding carton cereal box in plain board, and a 400 g corrugated shipper in plain board delivered to a household, for example in e-commerce. That is 40 kg and 400 kg of board per 1,000 units.

SPI calculation: each line is rate per tonne times tonnes. In Portugal, 0.04 tonnes x EUR 310.40 = EUR 12.42 for the boxes and 0.4 tonnes x EUR 310.40 = EUR 124.16 for the shippers; in the Netherlands, 0.04 x EUR 17 = EUR 0.68 and 0.4 x EUR 17 = EUR 6.80. Per box, the range is 0.07 to 1.24 euro cents of weight fee.

Three adjustments matter for a real bill. In France, the weight fee is not the whole charge: Citeo adds per-unit contributions, and its guide lists a litter contribution of 0.1631 euro cents for a one-unit grocery sales unit and 0.0140 euro cents for reuse, which on SPI’s reading would add EUR 1.77 per 1,000 cereal boxes, more than the 10% recycled fibre reduction saves on them (EUR 1.03). In Austria, a shipper that ends its life in a shop’s back room is commercial packaging at EUR 70 per tonne, so EUR 28 per 1,000 rather than EUR 83.20. In Italy, the converter applies the CAC at first transfer, so the brand sees EUR 1.80 per 1,000 boxes inside the carton price.

Scenarios: one million cereal boxes

Exhibit 9 runs one million 40 g cereal boxes, 40 tonnes of board, through each scheme at three constructions, one currency throughout.

SPI calculation: in Belgium, 40 tonnes x EUR 4,419 = EUR 176,760, against 40 x EUR 150.30 = EUR 6,012 for plain board, a difference of EUR 170,748 on one SKU. In Italy, an Aticelca 501 certificate at level C would take the high case from EUR 6,200 to EUR 4,400 (40 x EUR 110). In France, Citeo’s complex line, if it applied to the coating, would lift the high case to EUR 24,028 (40 x EUR 600.70).

The scenarios hold weight constant, which flatters the composite: a barrier-coated carton is often lighter than a plain carton with a separate liner. The 2027 rates published so far change little: Ecoembes at EUR 117 adds EUR 80 to the Spanish base and Valorlux at EUR 40.40 adds EUR 60 to the Luxembourg base.

Household against commercial: the stream decides the line

The same board can sit on two lines in one scheme, depending on where it ends up. Exhibit 10 sets the household line against the commercial or non-urban line where a scheme publishes both.

Corrugated is the material most often split between the two streams: a shipper that reaches a home is household packaging, the outer case that is unpacked in a store is not. SPI analysis: for brands that sell both online and through retail, the declared split between household and commercial board matters more in Portugal, Spain, Austria and Luxembourg than any choice of board grade, and it is a declaration a scheme can audit.

How paper rates moved, and where 2027 stands

Exhibit 11 shows the change in the paper line inside each scheme from 2025 to 2026, and from 2026 to 2027 where a 2027 value is published.

The 2025 to 2026 step split the schemes in two. France, Portugal, Austria and Ireland raised paper by 9.5% to 45.8%, while Italy and Luxembourg cut it and the Netherlands held it. For 2027, where tables are out, the moves are small. SPI analysis: paper is not where the 2027 increases sit in the published tables; at Verpact the rises are aluminium and drinks cartons, and at Fost Plus steel, EPS and PE films (SPI Ledger, EPR fees per tonne). A paper budget for 2027 should be built on 2026 rates in France, Italy, Portugal and Ireland until their tables are confirmed.