Brussels, 16/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - Reducing the consumption of light, disposable plastic bags (finer than 50 microns) by at least 80% throughout the European Union within five years, by placing binding objectives upon the member states in two stages and charging for these bags: this is what the European Parliament has called for. It made this clear on Wednesday 16 April when it took position at first reading on the proposed EU directive presented in November 2013. In so doing, the MEPs agreed with their rapporteur, Margrete Auken (Greens/EFA, Denmark) by a very large majority (539 votes to 51, with 72 abstentions).
“MEPs have today voted to significantly strengthen the draft EU rules aimed at reducing plastic bag use and waste, notably to include obligatory European reduction targets and a requirement that plastic bags come at a cost. As front-running countries have demonstrated, dramatically reducing the consumption of these disposable bags is easily achievable with coherent policy. Swiftly phasing out these bags is a readily-implementable solution to the pervasive problem of plastic waste in the environment”, said Auken.
Under the text voted upon, the member states will have to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags by at least 50% by 2017 and by at least 80% by 2019 compared to 1990 figures, replacing them with reusable or biodegradable bags.
In order to achieve these targets, the member states will have a broad range of instruments to fall back on: taxes, charges, marketing restrictions or bans to ensure that businesses - and food retailers at least - charge for plastic bags given out at the till instead of providing them free of charge. The precise calculation of prices will be carried out at member state level.
Extremely light bags used to protect the hygiene of loose foods such as raw meat, fish and dairy products will be exempted from the new measures. By 2019, plastic bags used to wrap vegetables, fruit and confectionery must be replaced by carrier bags made of recycled paper or biodegradable and compostable bags. Requirements for compostable and biodegradable packaging should be amended, MEPs say.
“When every European uses 200 plastic bags a year, 180 of which are reused little or not at all, this gives an idea of the scale of the environmental consequences. The member states which have made payment for disposable plastic bags obligatory have achieved very good results”, said Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium). “Ireland and Denmark have proven that with a tiny levy, a 90% reduction of usage of plastic bags can be achieved within months”, added Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE, Netherlands), spokesperson for his group on this dossier.
It will be up to the next Parliament resulting from the elections to negotiate an agreement with the Council of the EU on this proposal, which aims to tackle the problems of plastic in the sea by amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and waste packaging (Article 4 on the prevention of this waste). (AN)