The meeting comes after the European Parliament's 1st reading of the proposals, in which it was suggested that the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive should be updated with tighter targets (see letsrecycle.com story).
Targets put forward by the Parliament for the Council to discuss included an overall recovery target of 60%, a recycling target of 65% and material specific targets of 60% for glass, 55% for paper, 50% for metals and 20% for plastics. The target deadline was kept at 31st December 2006.
A statement from the European Commission said it expects the Council to move the material specific targets for paper from 55% to 60% and for plastics from 20% to 25%, with a new target of 15% introduced for wood packaging.
However, figures throughout the industry believe the Council will need to address the fact that the recovery target is lower than the recycling target, and that the date for the targets to be reached should be pushed back to 2008.
Problematic
The Paper Packaging Co-ordination Group has urged European ministers to correct “problematic points in the directive” by putting the date back to 2008 and setting the targets at 60-75% for recovery and 55-70% for recycling.
A statement from the PPCG, which represents the European paper and cardboard industry, also warned that if each packaging sector reached its material specific target as they currently stand, a total of only 47% recycling would have been carried out.
The PPCG said: “Hugely differentiated material-specific minimum recycling targets at EU level as proposed cannot be justified on environmental grounds, and penalises the industries that have developed their recovery and recycling loops at an early date. They may also lead to inter-material distortion, an issue that has not even been studied.”
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