Brussels, 03/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - EXPRA (the Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance) is calling on European policymakers to safeguard the primary role Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) plays in transitioning towards a circular economy and for them to define recycling criteria.
This appeal was launched on Friday 29 April when Simona Bonafé (S&D, Italy), rapporteur at the European Parliament on this dossier, was putting the final touches to her draft report for the initial EP Environment Committee debate during the meeting on 15-16 June.
EXPRA's Managing Director, Joachim Quoden, commented "As an organisation representing non-profit packaging-waste recovery and recycling systems, which are owned and run by the obliged industry, we would like to see stronger EPR provisions enabling a level playing field for the various actors involved".
The reviewed EU waste directives proposed by the Commission for accompanying the circular economy action plan of December 2015 acknowledge that EPR is an essential part to an efficient waste- management process. EXPRA emphasises that this approach now needs to be translated into strong common requirements for EPR schemes.
Although EXPRA welcomes the options set out for measuring recycling, it considers that the final recycling process definition should be adjusted in a bid to ensure data accuracy and reliability, as well as reporting transparency and compliance.
In this regard, EXPRA believes that EPR general requirements should be maintained under the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), and tailored to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD), which constitutes flagship legislation for the packaging sector. EXPRA explains that these requirements should allocate explicit roles and responsibilities for key players within the supply chain so as to avoid resources overlapping or duplicating, as well as conflicts of interest.
The alliance also wants EU legislation to recognise the fact that producers and the organisations implementing EPR on their behalf perform general interest services by contributing to environmental protection, economic efficiency and social responsibility.
EXPRA is also demanding that the final recycling process should begin at the entrance of the recycling plant and be coupled with material-specific quality standards to be introduced EU-wide for completing the definition proposed for this process. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)