Commission sends message in a bottle

Date: 22/06/2000

By Renée Cordes

MINERAL water producers exporting their drinks to Germany will soon have reason to celebrate.

The European Commission is planning to send Berlin a reasoned opinion - the second stage in infringement proceedings - for requiring more than 90% of mineral water to be sold in refillable containers under national legislation which is due to enter into force by the middle of next year.

The German law would force consumers to pay mandatory deposits on non-reusable bottles and cans. The EU executive will argue that this constitutes a barrier to free trade, since mineral water producers have no choice but to bottle their beverages 'at source' to comply with Union legislation designed to ensure quality and safety. Foreign manufacturers therefore face the prospect of substantially higher costs to collect used bottles and transport them to and from sales outlets and factories to be cleaned, refilled and readied for the next shipment.

Despite the Commission's objections to its mineral water legislation, Germany will still be able to apply refill quotas to beer, soft drinks and juices for the foreseeable future, although the EU executive says it has not ruled out widening the scope of its legal action later.

The decision to proceed against Germany over mineral water has nevertheless been welcomed by many drinks makers, who say its sends an important signal that the Commission will not tolerate measures which restrict trade even if they are imposed in the name of environmental protection. The Union executive used the same argument when it took Denmark to court earlier this year over its ban on using aluminium cans for soft drinks and some alcoholic beverages.

"As long as the case is not closed for other sectors, this is already a good move," said Salvatore Gabola, director of environmental affairs for Coca-Cola Greater Europe, who is confident the Commission will go further in future. "I would imagine that wine would be the next logical step," he added. In some cases, countries have invoked the bottling-at-source argument for wine as well, although there is currently no legislation on the Union's statute book which covers this.

Whether or not the Commission decides to expand the scope of its case against Berlin, the challenge to Germany's mineral water legislation will be a key test of how far member states can go on imposing limits on packaging restrictions on the ground that such measures are needed to protect the environment.

Commission officials have rejected Berlin's argument that its legislation is necessary to keep waste to a minimum, with one going so far as to claim that Berlin had been "overzealous" in promoting reuse.

The debate is sure to hot up in the coming months as the Commission struggles to set new EU-wide recycling and recovery targets to replace those laid down in the 1994 packaging and packaging waste directive.

The goal of that legislation was to harmonise national measures aimed at reducing the impact of packaging and waste on the environment on the one hand, and to ensure a well-functioning internal market on the other. The directive set targets for both recycling and recovery (which involves reusing waste in some way, including burning it to generate energy). These goals were to be achieved mostly by next year, although some member states - including Greece, Ireland and Portugal - were given until 2006 to meet them.

Essentially, the existing EU legislation requires member states to ensure that 50-65% of all waste is recovered from the 'waste stream' and that 25-45% of it is recycled, with a minimum 15% recycling target for each type of material, such as plastic, wood, paper, etc.

Under the timetable laid down in the directive, the Commission was due to come forward with proposals for new targets this year. But after long drawn-out discussions with the sector, the EU executive has bowed to industry demands to conduct an in-depth cost-benefit analysis of the current legislation before proposing any radical changes, and says new goals will not now be proposed until early next year.

Initially, the Commission was keen to call for substantially higher recycling targets, in light of evidence that most member states have either achieved or exceeded the mandatory targets well ahead of schedule.

Across the EU as a whole, about one-third of the packaging used for soft drinks, mineral water and wine is now reused. But this is not the case in all member states, with the picture varying widely from one country to another. For example, reuse systems are far more widely available in northern member states than in the south.

However, a Commission study found that the general 25% recycling target had already been achieved by all those countries which were not given a derogation under the 1994 legislation, about four years ahead of schedule.

In addition, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands have all gone beyond the maximum 45% recycling target. Most member states have also already achieved the minimum 50% recovery rate well before the June 2001 deadline for doing so.

In light of this success, the Commission floated the possibility late last year of setting stricter standards. In a paper circulated to industry, the EU executive proposed two scenarios. The first involves increasing the targets for total recovery to 90% by weight, and for recycling each specific material resulting from packaging waste to 60% by weight. But the study noted that this would put plastics, which are lighter than other materials, at a disadvantage.

The other option outlined by the Commission would be to abolish recovery targets and instead establish minimum recycling goals for different packaging materials, with a minimum target of recycling 60% by weight of total packaging waste.

Some officials suggested going even further but, in the face of strong opposition from both industry and environmental groups, the Commission has decided to step back and examine the impact of the 1994 directive in greater depth before coming forward with proposals.

Christian Hey, of the European Environmental Bureau, insists recycling targets are essential and should also be set even higher than has been suggested so far. "We strongly favour the second option but not with the low targets which have been mentioned," he said. "We need to promote recycling so that the sector is able to develop cost-reducing technologies. It is economically justified that we have ambitious recycling targets."

But the packaging industry gets nervous every time the possibility of raising recycling targets is even mentioned, insisting it would be far more sensible to look at the waste management issue as a whole rather than addressing the problems caused by packaging waste in isolation.

This is in line with the approach which Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström is taking towards the institution's planned integrated product policy, which foresees measures to reduce the environmental damage caused by products 'from the cradle to the grave'.

Industry is therefore urging policy-makers not to rush into introducing new, more stringent measures. "It is time to take a step back, gather all the stake-holders round the table and reach an agreement on where we want to go from here," said Julian Carroll, managing director of European packaging organisation EUROPEN. "Simply increasing targets for the sake of it seems to us not to be the right approach. Before we go making radical changes, we have to think about where we want to go."

This table shows what progress member states have made in complying with the targets laid down in the EU's 1994 packaging waste directive.

*These countries are allowed to set lower targets, but must achieve at least 25% for recovery and meet the other levels before 1 January 2006.
Source: The European Commission, November 1999

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