EU Taxpayers Happy to Finance CIRCULANDIA Packaging Solution

Only two days before the EU's new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation starts applying and small producers are discovering that sending packaged goods across the Single Market may not be worth the hassle, EU introduces the CIRCULANDIA project.

The project has a total budget of €9.63 million, of which €8.999 million comes from the EU taxpayers.

It will run from 2026 to 2030 and promises regenerative agriculture, shorter food supply chains, stronger producer-consumer connections, urban farming, reusable takeaway packaging and assorted forms of circularity.

Excellent.

(Fuck you if you just wanted to order some nice olive oil from Italy or Greece.)

CIRCULANDIA says it wants to replace the old linear model of production, consumption and waste.

Among its goals are reducing packaging waste, shortening supply chains and strengthening local food production and distribution. It will establish pilot projects, replication cities and multiplier regions so successful solutions can eventually spread across Europe.

Cities, universities, research institutions, NGOs, consultancies, businesses and regional authorities will collaborate until 2030 to demonstrate that food can be produced locally, put into containers and perhaps used more than once.

This knowledge was previously available only to grandmothers.

CIRCULANDIA will work on regenerative farming, soil health, carbon sequestration, urban food production, biological side streams, public procurement and reusable packaging ecosystems. The EU CAP Network says the project is intended to create new business opportunities for farmers and small companies while strengthening local markets.

Wonderful.

There is nothing inherently stupid about reusable packaging.

There is something extremely European about requiring 35 organisations, 12 countries, four and a half years and €9.6 million to investigate it.

Taxpayers can relax.

The problem is being studied.

€8,999,932.25 well spent.