Overview
As soon as a packaging unit is marked reusable, Art. 26 PPWR requires it to circulate in a re-use system — and Art. 26(2) requires a written participation confirmation. In Polygon One you document that system once and link your units to it. You will find the area in the sidebar under Packaging → Re-use systems. The page is always visible, even when no system exists yet — the first system is created from there.“Re-use systems under Art. 26/27 PPWR — classification, evidence, circulation figures and the written participation confirmation for your packaging units.”
What makes a unit reusable is the Reusable packaging toggle on the packaging unit: “Designed for reuse (Art. 3(6), Art. 11). Triggers the reuse-design duty and sets the conformity documents’ retention period to 10 years.” Only that toggle triggers the Art. 26 duty — and the unit then says so: “This unit is reusable. Art. 26 PPWR requires it to circulate in a documented re-use system.”
Your role in the system
Every system carries a role: Own system (you operate it yourself and there are as yet no other members), Operator (you operate it and have admitted members — you maintain the master data, publish versions and author the pool units) or Member (another company operates it: “This system is maintained by its operator. You are seeing the published version.”).Documenting a system
New system opens Document re-use system — “Describe the system your reusable packaging circulates in. These details become part of your technical documentation (Annex VII).”Save & adopt — the participation confirmation
At the end Polygon One asks you to Confirm participation:“With “Save & adopt” you declare in writing that you participate in this re-use system (Art. 26(2) PPWR). The confirmation is recorded with its date and shown in the technical documentation.”You have two options:
- Save & adopt — the details are frozen as a version and the participation is recorded with its date (Participation confirmation (Art. 26(2)) → “Self-declared on …”). Only an adopted state is evidence.
- Save only — the details stay a draft. The system then shows Not yet adopted, and: “Saved changes are an operator draft. Members and DoCs use the last published version until you publish.”
Loop type and the Annex VI exemption
The loop type has three values: Open loop (“The packaging circulates between several market participants that are not a fixed group.”), Closed loop (“The packaging returns to the same group of participants that placed it on the market.”) and Undetermined (“The loop type remains undetermined until the participant group and ownership transfers are reliably established.”).The exemption does not appear on the system page. It appears in the participating unit’s technical documentation (Annex VII), as the row Partial grandfathering exemption (Annex VI) with the value “Exempt from Part A point 1(a), (b)(i) and (ii), (e), (f) and (h)”. What counts there is the frozen system documentation, not the current live state.
Linking packaging units
A unit is linked on the packaging unit itself, in the Roles & obligations section: there you pick an existing system under Re-use system, create one via … or create a new system, or remove the link again (Remove link). For many units at once, the system page offers Manage pool units; every row gets an outcome there — linked, already linked to this system, already linked to another system, not reusable, not found or no longer live, or pool copy — operator manages this link.Only units marked reusable can be linked, and a unit always belongs to at most one system.
Status per unit
The packaging-units table shows a Re-use system status column per unit:Versions, dossier and exports
Changes to the system only take effect through Publish version. The dialog says what that means:“The new version takes effect for N members. Declarations of conformity already issued will then read “documentation outdated” and should be re-issued. If nothing about the content changed, no new version is created.”The Versions section lists every version as Active or Superseded with its publication date. Under Exports there are two documents, each in German or English: the Participation confirmation (“Standalone record of the written confirmation under Art. 26(2).”) and the Dossier version, which is generated from an immutable frozen snapshot rather than from current live data. With no published version it reads “Publish a dossier version before exporting it.”
Members: two-sided consent
If you run a system for other companies, you admit them in the Members section — “Members receive design-locked copies of your pool units and read the published version of this system.” Which of two paths applies is decided by the email address. A new address creates a workspace via Add member, invites its owner and distributes the pool units. You enter the Company, the Contact email and optionally the Contact name, and send with Create and invite; for many members at once there is Paste list (one line per member: company; email; contact name). An address that already belongs to an account gets no second workspace. Instead you send a join request with Request existing workspace, which that company decides in its own workspace under Participation requests with Approve or Decline — “Approving records your participation, creates the membership and distributes design-locked copies of the current pool units.” Under Requests to existing workspaces you track the status (Pending, Approved, Declined, Cancelled, Expired) and stop an open request with Cancel request. The member list shows a status per company: Active, Invite pending, Access disabled, No user account, No access (PPWR not enabled) or Removed.Ending a membership
End membership? is explicitly not a data clawback:“Participation ends immediately. The member keeps its copies of the pool units — they become ordinary units, become editable again, and stop receiving updates. Declarations of conformity the member has already issued will then read “documentation outdated”.”If the same company later re-joins: “Re-joining reconciles the current pool design and bill of materials. Your own references, suppliers, articles, target markets and evidence stay unchanged; deleted copies stay deleted.”
Pool units at the member
As a member you receive copies of the operator’s pool units. They carry the badge Pool unit · system name and are design-locked — as are the copy’s bill of materials and its component data: “These details are set by the re-use system … and cannot be changed here. Internal reference, target markets, supplier, articles and your own placement volumes remain yours.” Your component code and your own evidence stay yours as well. If the operator retires a format from the pool, your unit stays: “The operator no longer runs this format in the pool. Your unit and its data remain — it simply stops receiving updates from the system.”Evidence, circulation figures and reports
Documents. On the system page you file the evidence for the system. Members see it read-only with the provenance note “Published by … in dossier version …. Read-only pool evidence.” Circulation figures. Per Year you record Trips, the Return rate (%), the Calculation method (Measured or Estimated) and, for an estimate, the Estimation basis (“Why estimation was necessary”).An empty field means “not recorded” — not zero. A missing entry is never read as “no trips”.
You record the Period (Start / End), the Category, optionally the Material, and the metrics — among them Trips, Rotations, Return rate, Fillings, Reuses, Rejects and Sales units. “Trips and rotations are different values.”
A report may also be saved without a metric, to record the documentation path. And: “Art. 11 evidence coverage is informational and does not block DoC issuance.”
What a re-use system changes elsewhere
Deleting a system
Delete re-use system? — “The system and its evidence move to the trash. Linked units lose their participation record.” A deleted system shows the badge Deleted and the note “This re-use system is deleted. Restore it to make changes.”The members’ design lock is released while it is deleted. As long as the system sits in the trash, the members’ pool copies are ordinary, editable units; they are not taken away from them. Restoring re-applies the lock — changes a member makes in the meantime are not protected from the operator’s next update.
Technical Documentation (Annex VII)
Where the system details appear in your Annex VII documentation.