Overview

If you sell packaged goods into Spain, you'll come across four coloured recycling symbols. This guide explains what they mean, where they go, and whether you're actually required to use them.

The four symbols at a glance

Important: the brown symbol says COMPOSTA, not RECICLA — that's not a typo, it's a deliberate wording difference. Only use it if the packaging is genuinely certified compostable under EN 13432. Putting a brown symbol on non-certified packaging is an automatic compliance fail.

How it looks on real packaging

Each component of your packaging gets its own symbol, matched to the material it's made from:

• A carton, bottle, or can → yellow symbol
• A box or bag (paper/cardboard) → blue symbol
• A tray, cup, or bag (certified compostable) → brown symbol
• A bottle or jar (glass) → green symbol

Rule of thumb: one symbol per component, colour-matched to the material — not one symbol for the whole product if it's made of mixed materials:

Do you actually have to use these symbols?

This is where a lot of sellers get confused — there are two separate questions here, and they have different answers.

1. Is a symbol mandatory at all? No. Under Article 13 of Royal Decree 1055/2022, what's legally required is the information — telling the consumer which container each component belongs in. Plain text (e.g. "Dispose of in the yellow container") satisfies this on its own. You don't have to use Ecoembes' graphic symbol.

2. If you do use the symbol, is the colour mandatory? Yes. The Ecoembes symbol is a licensed asset that must be used exactly as issued, and colour is what tells the consumer which bin it means. There's no approved black-and-white or greyscale version. If you recolour it or use a monochrome version, it's a modified symbol and will be rejected — it needs to be one of the four exact colours shown above.

Quick compliance checklist

• Does every packaging component have disposal information (symbol or text)?
• If using symbols, is each one colour-matched correctly to its material?
• Is the brown COMPOSTA symbol used only on EN 13432-certified compostable packaging?
• Are all symbols used unmodified — full colour, no greyscale, no recolouring?