The call comes in the wake of a push by the European Commission to increase the impact of public investment in a number of ways including the “greater uptake of innovative, green and social criteria in awarding public contracts.”
FEAD said it believes that public procurement, and in particular GPP – green public procurement, is one of the tools that can contribute to the transition from a linear to a circular economy.This week the European waste management association, FEAD, said it welcomed last month’s non-legislative Public Procurement Package and it supported the Commission’s “continued efforts to ensure that the public procurement rules are properly implemented across the internal market”.
FEAD-President Jean-Marc Boursier, (recycling chief for Suez Europe), said: “Over recent years, falling oil prices have lowered the price for virgin plastics, creating a price gap with recycled materials leading to the closure of plants and job losses in what should actually be a promising market.
“Furthermore, the recently announced ban by China on imports as from January 2018 on different waste streams has already dramatically affected recycled materials prices and offtakes. This wake-up call not only urgently requires the creation of more treatment capacity in Europe but also of additional local demand through demand-side measures.”
Demand
Mr Boursier continued: “Therefore we need to promote the use of recycled materials to make them competitive with virgin ones and by stimulating the demand for secondary materials across the entire value chain. As a way of reaching this goal, GPP must be intensified and the use of recycled content must become mandatory in various public tenders, at EU, Member State, and local authority levels.”
“ESA strongly supports the call to use public procurement policies”
Roy Hathaway
Environmental Services Association
Giving a UK perspective, Roy Hathaway, European advisor at the Environmental Services Association (ESA), which is a member of FEAD, said: “ESA strongly supports the call to use public procurement policies to increase the demand for secondary raw materials including plastics. Mandatory rules requiring preference to be given to recycled materials over primary ones, where they are equally fit for purpose, could play an important role in helping to create sustainable markets for recovered materials in the future.”
Mr Hathaway also said that this is something that Defra needs to address in its resources and waste strategy next year. He warned: “It will be no use setting higher recycling targets for the UK post-Brexit if government does not put in place measures to ensure that the extra material collected can find a viable end market.”
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