Circular Economy - EU staggers packaging targets

Revised packaging recycling targets put forward by the EU Commission on 2 December, show a move to capture more aluminium cans and to streamline compliance reporting.

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.”

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.”

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.