Packaging accounts for roughly 40% of plastic use in Southeast Asia, making it the region's largest plastic application. Yet across the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) region, mismanaged plastic waste averages 29% — more than double the 12% that is actually recycled, according to the OECD's Regional Plastics Outlook for Southeast and East Asia.

That gap sits at the centre of a regulatory push now underway across South and Southeast Asia, where rapid urbanisation, rising consumption and continued waste imports from wealthier nations are straining collection and processing systems. Michelle Boon, Global Director of Supply Chain Solutions at Mainetti, argues that business action alone cannot close it. Governments are responding, and packaging producers in several jurisdictions now face binding obligations with deadlines.

Vietnam's EPR regime gains implementing rules

Vietnam's Law on Environmental Protection already requires producers and importers to either organise the collection and recycling of their packaging waste or pay into the Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund. In May 2026, Decree 110/2026/ND-CP came into force, setting out detailed requirements for product and packaging recycling and giving the EPR framework operational teeth.

The structure links packaging placed on the market directly to end-of-life responsibility. For producers, that means compliance costs are now a function of design choices: packaging engineered for recyclability reduces both waste volumes and financial exposure under the scheme.

Singapore builds the data layer

Singapore takes a measurement-first approach. The Resource Sustainability Act requires companies to report packaging data and submit Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (3R) plans to the National Environment Agency. The obligation targets packaging at source, and the resulting data transparency is designed to guide future policy decisions rather than simply penalise end-of-pipe waste.

The OECD notes that enforcement remains robust in high-income countries such as Singapore. In many other APT countries, enforcement is weak or inconsistent — a capacity gap that limits the impact of even well-designed policies.

Thailand restricts imports

Thailand has moved on the feedstock side. After becoming a major destination for global plastic waste streams, the country introduced restrictions on imported plastic waste. The OECD reports the restrictions aim to reduce pressure on domestic recycling systems and encourage investment in national waste infrastructure.

The import controls matter for the regional material balance: they cut off a low-cost, low-quality feedstock stream and force domestic collection and sorting capacity to scale if recycled-content demand is to be met.

Design-for-recycling as compliance strategy

For businesses, the design phase is where regulatory risk is now priced in. Producers are reducing material complexity, increasing recyclable content and selecting formats compatible with existing recycling infrastructure. One visible outcome is the shift toward mono-material packaging, which moves through recycling systems without requiring consumers to separate multiple material types before disposal.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) tools are also entering the design process. As the software becomes more accessible, companies use it to compare materials, formats, weights and closure systems against carbon emissions, energy consumption, water use and recyclability — metrics that increasingly align with both regulatory reporting and sustainability targets.

The commercial logic extends beyond compliance. McKinsey's 2025 sustainability-in-packaging consumer research shows consumers favour recyclable packaging, giving early movers a competitive position as requirements tighten.

What to watch

The enforcement gap between Singapore and much of the rest of the APT region is the variable that will decide whether these frameworks reshape material flows or remain paper obligations. Vietnam's Decree 110/2026/ND-CP, in force since May 2026, is the first test of whether mandatory recycling obligations translate into collection and reprocessing capacity at scale. Similar EPR policies are emerging across the region, and each carries a compliance deadline that producers will need to track.