Unless action is taken immediately, the EU risks failing to meet the ambitious plastic packaging recycling targets it has set for 2025 and 2030 in its 2018 plastics strategy, warns the European Court of Auditors in an analysis paper published on Tuesday 6 October.
While packaging accounts for 61% of the plastic waste generated in the EU, only one third is recycled. In 2018, the EU set recycling targets of 50% of plastic waste by 2025 and 55% by 2030, an ambition that reflects the scale of the environmental challenge posed by plastics, the Court points out.
Among the shortcomings identified, this analytical document points in particular to huge differences between Member States in recycling rates and the reporting of recycling data by Member States. It also notes that producer responsibility systems do not always encourage recyclability.
The report highlights the existence of binding targets for the recycling of plastic packaging, but not for plastic waste from the agricultural and construction sectors or for the automotive and electrical and electronic equipment sectors, which are covered by other legislation. However, these other fields generate 22% of plastic waste.
The report highlights the existence of criminal activities fostered by the difficulty of prosecuting offenders and the lack of deterrent sanctions. In some countries, half of the hazardous plastic waste disappears before entering the recycling system.
“To meet its new plastic packaging recycling targets, the EU will have to reverse the current situation where we are incinerating more waste than we recycle. It’s a colossal challenge”, says Samo Jereb, the Member of the Court responsible for the analysis.
According to him, “with its new approach, the EU has the opportunity to secure an advantage as a forerunner and strengthen its position as a world leader in plastic packaging recycling” and to contribute to the circular economy, but this is not a foregone conclusion.
Indeed, with the new, more precise rules on recycling reporting and tightening the rules on the export of plastic waste to non-Member States under the new Basel Convention, which will soon enter into force, the reported recycling rate for the EU is set to decrease.
Unless decisive and concerted action is taken, it will therefore be difficult for the EU to achieve its goal in just 5-10 years, the auditors say.
Invited in a videoconference to comment on the envisaged plastics tax to be fed into the own resources of the EU 2021-2027 budget, Mr Jereb said that “the evaluation of recycled and non-recycled quantities” should be the basis.
Unlike an audit, this analysis report does not make recommendations, as the ‘Plastics’ strategy is too recent to make any. Discussions are still ongoing on the national action plans and on some definitions that are crucial for its implementation, the report’s author explained.
Asked about possible paths of improvement, he cited, as an example, a digital system used in Portugal for reporting waste flows by companies, arguing that the use of such a system in the Member States could potentially improve matters by making it easier to identify where illegal waste ends up.
According to him, the Covid-19 pandemic also aggravated the situation by causing an increase in single-use plastics. “Protective masks have been thrown into the environment without being collected, lockdown has reduced collection capacity and criminal activity has increased. This makes it all the more important to increase recycling capacities in Europe”. To view the report: https://bit.ly/2I3AYzN (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)