The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation made waves after aggressive dilution from the single-use packaging industry earlier this fall, making it the most lobbied file of this legislature. Next Monday 18 December, the Member States in the Environment Council are expected to finally adopt their position on the EU rules to deal with packaging waste. The Italian and Finnish governments picked up misleading lobbying arguments and circulated them in a non-paper to further dilute the environmental ambition and undermine reuse and waste prevention measures.

Jean-Pierre Schweitzer, EEB Policy Manager for Circular Economy said:
“Reuse and restriction of unnecessary packaging are the most environmentally impactful measures proposed in the packaging regulation. Undermining these measures is irresponsible and risks permitting an additional 7.3 million tonnes of packaging waste on the market by 2030.”

This would be equivalent to Spain’s annual production of packaging waste leading to 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2030. In comparison, the design for recycling measures proposed in the regulation are only expected to save 800 thousand tonnes of CO2eq in 2030.

A coalition of NGOs put together technical arguments to prove why further derogations on art 26, 22 and Annex V must be avoided, exposing their negative unintended consequences. The note also shows how the derogations put forth by Italy and Finland based on collection and/on recycling rates are not just clearly unambitious, but also ignore the waste hierarchy creating a conflict with the Waste Framework Directive.

Additionally, the deletion of reuse targets and of entire rows of Annex V, as proposed by Italy and Finland, would create massive distortions within the Single Market, fostering divergent national regulatory approaches to packaging waste reduction.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Note with technical objections
Paper: Prevention and reuse – the only solution to record levels of packaging waste