Packaging industry welcomes new EU packaging waste rules but warns legislators

More than 120 packaging industry associations showed support for the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) recently proposed by the European Commission.

However, a joint letter with PET Europe Producers’ Association, Petcore Europe, and European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF) among its signatories expressed concerns about the risk to end with the internal market legal basis. 

The document stated that the current 1994 version of the PPWR aimed to address differences among national rules on packaging waste management, removing internal market barriers while providing environmental protection.

It warned that the packaging value chain has recently witnessed how EU Member States have adopted national packaging and packaging waste legislation, creating an increase of “unilateral and divergent national packaging requirements.”

“These have led to internal market barriers, environmental trade-offs, losses in economies of scale, and diversion of investments and R&D,” it reads.

In a commentary published in the May issue of PETS International, FEDIAF’s Deputy Secretary General Alice Tempel Costa said: “Our request is that no new national packaging initiatives are introduced until the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation is in place.”

Preserving the internal market 

The signatories urge co-legislators, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, to preserve in “its entirety” the internal market legal basis. “It is best suited to serve the environmental and economic objectives of the proposed regulation,” it concludes. 

The regulation, which targets to reduce packaging waste by 15% by 2040, will not be assessed and potentially amended by the EU co-legislators.

If adopted, it will be a European law that will come into force in all EU nations.