The Commission has put forward staggered packaging recycling targets of 65% by 2025 and 75% by 2030.
Under the objectives, producers will be required to reuse or recycle a minimum of 75% by weight of all packaging waste used. Targets for individual waste streams include 75% for wood and 85% for ferrous metal, glass, aluminium and paper and cardboard.
In comparison, Janez Potocnik’s 2014 package floated proposals for an 80% packaging recycling target by 2030 – including a 90% target for paper and cardboard.
The Commission notes that targets for ferrous metals and aluminium packaging should be split. It reasons that the separation could “achieve significant economic and environmental benefits because more aluminium would be recycled leading to significant energy and carbon dioxide savings.”
Plan
A separate action plan will be set up to evaluate the future plastics packaging target depending on the progress made by individual Member States. A prospective plastics target for 2025 has been set at 55%.
The Commission’s report into the revised targets states: “Targets for the recycling of plastic packaging waste for 2025 have been set taking into account what was technically feasible at the time of the revision of the Directive.
“The Commission may propose revised levels of the targets for plastics for 2030 based on a review of progress made by Member States towards reaching those targets, taking into account the evolution of the types of plastics placed on the market and the development of new recycling technologies and the demand for recycled plastics.”
Regulation surrounding packaging waste has meanwhile been streamlined, and implementation reports prepared by Member States every three years will be scrapped as they “have not proved to be an effective tool for verifying compliance” and are “generating unnecessary administrative burden”.
The Commission’s report continues: “It is therefore appropriate to repeal provisions obliging Member States to produce such reports and for compliance monitoring purposes use exclusively the statistical data which Member States report every year to the Commission.”
Redesign
There is however, little in the report to suggest how redesign of products or a review of product lifecycle could help stimulate a reduction in packaging waste.
In April, Defra’s Advisory Committee on Packaging warned that pure recycling targets not based on scientific assessment of the whole product lifestyle could potentially create a net environmental disbenefit (see letsrecycle.com story).
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