The Parliament's environment committee had wanted the deadline to be set at December 31, 2006, but in the second reading of the revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive held in the full Parliament earlier this week, MEPs accepted the Council of Ministers' demand for 2008 (see letsrecycle.com story).
A statement from the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries (CIAA) said: “The CIAA welcomes the decision of the EP to support the Council common position for an overall recovery target of 60% as well as an overall recycling target of 55% minimum and 80% maximum. The deadline of December 2008 by which those targets must be reached is a positive decision as these highly ambitious rates cannot be achieved overnight.”
Commenting on the decision, the director of Europen, the European organisation for packaging and the environment, Julian Caroll said: “Europen is pleased with the outcome of the EP vote. We are pleased that the figures and deadlines set in Council's common position were accepted by the Parliament.”
National
In the UK, the largest packaging waste compliance scheme, Valpak, also welcomed the Parliament's decision, but stressed the need for the government to come to an early decision over national targets leading up to the 2008 European deadline.
A Valpak spokesman said: “Valpak welcomes the news that European targets have been agreed. We are particularly happy with the timescale. What we now need is for the Government to quickly set interim targets on a rolling basis so that confidence returns to industry, resulting in increased investment in the UK's recycling infrastructure. Such investment is vital if the UK is to meet these targets.”
Biffpack also saw the European Parliament's decision as the right one for industry, but added a warning that the decision would not make reaching that targets easy, particularly in the light of the possible consequences of a European Court of Justice ruling on incineration counting towards recovery targets (see letsrecycle.com story).
A statement from the compliance scheme said: “The acceptance of the lower recycling and recovery targets should be tempered by the fact that the use of municipal waste incineration to generate PRNs is now in doubt after this year. This will take away over 500,000 tonnes of recovery which will have to be made up by additional recycling. However, the effect of the EU Court of Justice decision on this is still being considered by the UK, so we will not know what effect it will have on PRNs for a while.”
Prevention
There are also some concerns by industry surrounding the waste prevention measures within the amendments to the packaging directive. New rules would mean that from January 1, 2004, new packaging could only be placed on the market – for new and existing products – if the company has sought to minimise its environmental impact as much as possible.
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