In a joint letter published on Thursday 18 February, the NGOs Zero Waste Europe and ECOS, and the European recycling industry, called on the European Commission to establish a rigorous, transparent, ambitious and circular ‘chain of custody’ method for determining recycled content in plastic products. The EU institution should also stop using a flexible ‘mass balance’ approach method, which, according to the letter’s authors, is blocking ambitions for increased recycled content in plastics.
This appeal has been launched at a time when the Commission is developing options for methods for calculating, verifying and reporting recycled content in plastic products under the ‘Single Use Plastics (SUP) Directive’.
The signatories have stressed that the stakes are high, because “once developed, the method will have further implications for other types of materials and products, such as for other packaging materials, construction materials, batteries and vehicles”.
They have called on the Commission to base its method on ten key criteria in order to combat the industry’s greenwashing practices and to regulate the way in which recycled content is determined, thereby ensuring a circular control chain.
Such an approach requires, inter alia, aiming for the highest possible amount of recycled content and not allowing the trading of recycled content as part of a credit system between sites and countries.
To see the letter: https://bit.ly/37rxQYf (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)