EU Parliament Passes Tough New Recycling Law

The European Parliament Wednesday passed a tough new recycling law, giving countries until 2008 to more than double their minimum target for recycling cans, plastic bottles and cardboard packages.

The European Union Parliament voted and approved a legislative resolution revising a directive on packaging and packaging waste. Although the House left many points in the Council common position untouched, it did reintroduce specific cases of derogation to targets, as well as the scope of application to the directive. A conciliation committee may still be necessary in order to reach a final agreement.

Parliament has accepted the minimum percentage of targets for recovery and recycling of packaging waste contained in the Council's common position. It has also accepted the Council's common position view on the timetables. The resolution calls on the 15 members of the EU to recover for recycling at least 60 percent of the packaging waste by the end of 2008. The same date applies to the recycling of between 55 percent minimum and 80 percent as a maximum of the weight of package waste.

By no later than 31 December 2008, should the following minimum recycling targets for materials contained in packaging waste be attained. In addition, Members States may set targets for recycling materials other than those stated in the report (60 percent for glass, 60 percent for paper and board, 50 percent for metals, 22.5 percent for plastics).

The EU also gave its support to give Greece, Ireland and Portugal an extension of the deadline until June 30, 2010. The deadline for achieving the recovery and recycling targets for the new Member States will have to be dealt with at a later stage, preferably with the involvement of the representatives of these Member States and their members in the European Parliament.

Parliament decided that the Commission shall determine necessary measures to deal with any difficulties encountered in applying the provisions of this Directive, in particular to quantities of which do not exceed 0.1 percent of all packaging put on the EU market, such as pharmaceutical products and small packaging. Furthermore, items shall be considered to be packaging according to the criteria set, unless it is part of a durable product that is necessary to contain, support or preserve the product throughout its lifetime.

As regards to the different exemptions to the directive, MEPs agreed that items such as CDs and video cases for short-term use will be regarded as packaging but flowerpots will not, unless they are added just to assist sales. Unsurprisingly, wrapping and gift paper sold as a separate product is also exempt.