EuRIC, FEAD release position paper on Circular Economy

The European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC) and the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services (FEAD), both based in Brussels, have jointly released a position paper calling on European regulators and legislators to develop effective strategies and policies to improve end markets for recyclables in Europe.

The EuRIC is a confederation representing the interests of the European recycling industries, while the FEAD represents Europe’s solid waste management industry.

While the two groups applauded the European Commission for taking steps to boost the collection of recyclables through the Circular Economy policy, the paper released by the two groups states more effort needs to be made to improve the demand for the collected recyclables.

“We need to make sure that European legislation lays down the framework conditions to support a sustainable demand for those secondary raw materials so that the economics of a circular economy become self-supporting,” the position paper notes. “Just because more of the material is being collected does not automatically create demand for them.”

In the paper, the two organizations say that for the circular economy to work in practice, waste, which cannot be prevented, must be capable of being recovered as a useful resource in line with the waste hierarchy.

The paper continues, noting that the EC’s proposals also imply that if the quality of materials collected for recycling is improved, that will automatically create more demand for secondary raw materials from the manufacturers. “We do not think this is the case. Quality has always been a driving objective for the recycling industry, and we fully acknowledge the importance of providing manufacturers with quality materials meeting their specifications. But quality generates an increased cost, which is currently not reflected in prices closely correlated with prices of primary raw materials, many of which are readily available.”

To accomplish this, the two parties submitted several recommendations to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers that amend the EC proposals to boost the use of secondary raw materials.

Steps mentioned in the paper to boost end markets are the following:

•             Ensure fair competition between virgin and secondary raw materials by financially rewarding the environmental benefits of recycling;

•             Introduce minimum recycled content requirements for selected products;

•             Introduce minimum green public procurement requirements at EU level to boost the purchase of recycled products and materials;

•             Amend eco-labelling rules to incorporate indications of recycled content and recyclability.

•             Encourage member states to take fiscal and financial incentives such as lower or zero rate of VAT to favor secondary raw materials, which will be re-injected in the economy and products;

In addition, products need to be designed in order to foster their reparability and recyclability. Sustained demand for secondary raw materials in Europe needs to be triggered for the recycling sector to be an economically viable business model delivering high quality recycled materials, thereby increasing customers’ confidence.