The European Union will apply its new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) from 12 August 2026, requiring all producers, including micro‑entrepreneurs and hardware makers, to manage packaging waste across member states. Under the extended producer responsibility scheme, businesses that place packaging on the market must finance collection and recycling. The regulation seeks to harmonise packaging rules and reduce waste, but it retains national implementation differences. A Greek engineer who sells a €25 open‑source sensor board to customers in Germany, France, Austria and Belgium must register and report packaging waste in each country. Estimated annual compliance costs range from €100 to €450 per country, totalling about €1,150 in an optimistic scenario. Lectronz, a marketplace for open‑source hardware, reports that half of its registered sellers received fewer than ten orders in the past year. The regulatory burden could force many sellers to cease EU sales or exit the platform, threatening the ecosystem that supports innovation. Observers have suggested three approaches: an EU‑wide de minimis threshold to exempt low‑volume producers; a centralised EU EPR portal similar to the VAT OSS system; and allowing marketplaces to act collectively as a single producer for reporting and fee payment. The European Commission has proposed suspending the requirement to appoint an authorised representative in each destination country until 2035, a measure that remains under review. Until then, the effect of the regulation on micro‑enterprises and the broader technology sector remains uncertain.