The clock is ticking to achieve a final agreement on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The European Commission, Parliament, and Council must agree on a final text before their last trialogue, scheduled for March 4. Once agreed upon, the text must be confirmed at the European Parliament’s last scheduled plenary session at the end of April. European elections are taking place in early June.
In a last push to exert influence on the final text, the German Association of the Plastics Converters (GKV), the German Association for Plastics Packaging and Films (IK, and the Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association (VDMA) are calling decision makers to have ‘the same rules for everyone’.
The associations believe the PPWR can be successful in boosting the EU economy and protecting the environment but only if there is a standardised regulation of the single internal market and material requirements are material-neutral, without special rules for plastics or exemptions for paper.
In particular, the associations have called for PPWR rules to apply at EU level, rather than shifting final decisions to the 27 member states.
“We need binding and enforceable guard rails across the EU,” the statement says. “Even if it may make it easier to negotiate a compromise, the shifting of decisions to the Member States will have a negative impact on all of us. Please fight for standardised and practicable solutions at EU level. And if this is not possible on all points in the short time available, regulate the particularly critical and far-reaching issues in a next step. After all, there can only be one circular economy in the EU, not 27 different ones.”
As for material neutrality, the associations called for the cancellation of ‘the ecologically unjustified material-specific special rules and exceptions to bans, reduction targets, recyclability requirements, recycled content and reuse’. They appealed to a fact-based decision-making despite ‘plastic as a material unfortunately not being held in high regard’, citing an independent study showing that, in many cases, replacing plastic with alternatives results in worse greenhouse gas emissions.
“One example: For years, experts have been warning against the trend of replacing easily recyclable plastic packaging with paper packaging coated with plastic that is difficult to recycle,” the associations said. “Reduction targets for plastic and exemptions regarding recyclability or the use of recyclates in paper composites in the PPWR would further encourage this undesirable trend on a massive scale. This cannot possibly be in your interest. Please listen to the independent experts, including those from environmental NGOs!,” they concluded.
Earlier this year, a legal assessment by Germany-based law firm Dentos, commissioned by European Plastics Converters, IK, and French trade association Elipso, has found that the draft PPWR’s special rules for plastic and exemptions for other materials ‘are very likely not compatible with EU law’. Dentos also argued that if the ‘plastic-discriminatory’ provisions are adopted in the PPWR, the EU is opening itself to ‘numerous actions against them’.