Europe: CEPI welcomes waste package vote

Europe – The European Parliament’s environment, public health and food safety committee has adopted a waste package that enshrines the concept of a single method for measuring recycling targets as well as a ‘closed list’ on costs to be borne by producers when their products become waste.

The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) is among the organisations to welcome the environment committee vote, claiming that it will ‘strengthen the foundation of a truly circular economy in Europe’. In particular, CEPI supports the call to measure real recycling rates at the input to the final recycling process. ‘It is essential that material is only considered recycled once it enters the final production process and is actually reprocessed,’ it asserts.

CEPI also welcomes the call for quality standards and traceability in the paper recycling chain ‘that will enhance targeted investments and serve the efficient functioning of the secondary raw material market in Europe’. It adds: ‘The reinforcement of separate collection will also drive quality recycling and boost circularity of Europe’s economy. In the past, authorities have used a loophole in the separate collection obligation to collect paper in co-mingled streams, undermining high-quality recycling.’ In this context, the confederation expresses concern that the proposal to exempt scarcely-populated areas from this obligation ‘may unnecessarily open up a gap’.