Round and round we go: but decisions must be made on recycling

Date: 30/01/03

By Karen Carstens

The debate on how to minimise the impact of packaging on the environment is in full swing.

THE modern consumer takes it for granted that everything his little heart could ever desire comes in all manner of nifty packaging.

But, despite technological innovations that have led to an estimated 30 reduction in packaging waste over the past decade, environmentalists and consumers remain concerned about what becomes of all the bottles, cartons and containers after they've served their initial purpose.

And the debate on minimising their environmental impact has hotted up in recent months, with a 1994 directive on packaging and packaging waste up for revision in a European Parliament second reading vote set to take place this spring.

"This is one of the most complex [environment] directives we have," said one official in the European Commission's environment directorate.

In December 2001, the Commission suggested ambitious new targets for the recovery and recycling of packaging.

The original goals included a recovery rate of 50 to 60 and a recycling rate of 25 to 45, with a minimum of 15 by weight for each packaging material. (Recovery includes the re-use, recycling and energy recovery, for example through incineration, of waste.)

The new overall recovery and recycling targets were between 60 and 75, and 55 and 70, respectively.

And specific recycling targets were fixed for separate materials: 60 for glass, 55 for paper and cardboard, 50 for metals and 20 for plastics, the most costly and difficult material to recycle.

The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers still need to reach an agreement on this.

Following pressure from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, the Council pushed the target for plastics up to 22.5. Member states also added a 15 target for the recycling of wood.

In addition, MEPs voted to jack up the minimum EU-wide recycling target to 65.

Neil Mayne, of the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME), said the targets are unrealistic, especially for the ten countries set to join the Union in May 2004.

"It's like you're going for the school high jump, raising the bar from six feet to seven feet, and some of these countries can't even jump one foot.

"The Commission's proposal is challenging, and Parliament's proposal is beyond the pale."

The Commission's new targets should be met by 30 June 2006, although this deadline was extended to 30 June 2009 for three laggards: Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The Parliament and member states have also suggested various deadlines which will also be discussed in the second reading.

"Ireland has got very little going on the waste management side; in Portugal, there are pockets of activity in Lisbon and Porto, but nowhere else; and Greece, well, you're not quite sure what's really happening there," Mayne explained.

But an even bigger concern for many environmentalists is a lack of more far-reaching revisions to the directive, especially to its 'essential requirements'.

"We had expected this revision process to address prevention and to address the problem of producer responsibility," Roberto Ferrigno, EU policy director of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) says.

"But it's just not happening - every member state still has its own system."

Dutch Socialist Dorette Corbey, however, has suggested an EU-wide prevention strategy with her proposal for a 'packaging environment indicator' (PEI), which would lead to the labelling of all packaging from 'bad to good' (see interview, page 18).

Ferrigno, however, agrees with industry that it is ridiculous to discuss such lofty goals when very few members states appear to be taking the essential requirements seriously.

"The Commission decided not to touch the directive," he said. "It's a political decision - they only wanted to change the targets."

Commission officials, meanwhile, beg to differ, saying the decision to focus on targets was a conscious one.

The Commission, said one DG environment official, has a few other aces up its sleeve, notably a communication set to be published this spring on 'integrated product policy', or IPP, a new approach that tries to pinpoint which products are most damaging at which stage in their life-cycle.

"We have IPP coming along so there was no point for us in trying to pre-empt that policy [by revising the packaging directive]." Still, according to Ferrigno, the Commission has stalled revision of the directive by rejecting recommendations it had earlier requested from the EU standardisation body, CEN.

"The people drawing up these new standards include technical experts from member states and the packaging industry," the official said.

"So the NGOs have been against the process all along because they felt left out. They think the Parliament should be coming up with these definitions instead of CEN."

Whoever draws them up, someone needs to clarify the EU's rules on packaging waste, which industry fears could stifle competition and the free movement of goods - as a long- running metal drinks can ban did in Denmark - if they allow for too many 'extreme' options.

As Vanya Veras, secretary-general of the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services, put it: "There are all these bits and pieces [of legislation] floating around now, and the Commission needs to gather them all together to create one big, uniform picture.

Article discusses the ongoing debate on how to minimise the impact of packaging on the environment.