PlasticsEurope’s reaction to the EP vote on the Waste Package
Following today’s vote by the European Parliament on the Circular Economy legislative proposals, PlasticsEurope welcomes MEPs’ support given to the separate collection of all packaging and the reduction of landfilling of municipal waste. PlasticsEurope shares the Parliaments' view on the crucial role which these legislative measures will have on stimulating investments in new and in existing waste management solutions, while helping to close the loop.
"Sorting and recycling are more attractive when all packaging is collected separately from residual household waste since this guarantees the supply of feedstock to support new investments”, said Karl-H. Foerster, Executive Director of PlasticsEurope. "This measure is one step to close the gap and will also help prevent the risk of leakage into the environment; it will support the creation of jobs in Europe and secure a robust European recycling value chain” he stated.
MEPs also acknowledged the importance of reducing landfilling of municipal waste to a minimum by 2030 and a progressive phasing out of landfilling of recyclable and recoverable waste as a fundamental condition to support the Union's transition towards a circular economy. "The European plastics industry has been calling for a legally binding landfill restriction on all recyclable as well as other recoverable post-consumer waste by 2025. As an industry, we see it as a priority for Europe as such waste should be treated as a resource”, Mr Foerster, noted.
PlasticsEurope considers the new 60% plastic packaging recycling target that the Parliament has adopted for 2025, together with a stricter calculation methodology as an extremely ambitious objective. "Taking into account today’s recycling technology, we already consider that the 55% plastics packaging preparing for re-use and recycling target proposed by the Commission is challenging. We would therefore like to call on the Presidency of the Council to carefully assess the impact prior to adopting any substantive amendment to the rules on the calculation initially proposed by the Commission” Mr Foerster, concluded.