On Tuesday 18 February, the EU Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on the targeted revision of the Waste Framework Directive, aimed at reducing food waste by 2030 and involving textile manufacturers in the fight against waste.
Food waste. Reductions will have to be 10% for waste from processing and manufacturing and 30% per capita for food waste in the retail trade, restaurants, food services and households. These two targets will be calculated in relation to the average annual amount of food waste generated in these sectors between 2021 and 2023.
Parliament has failed to make it compulsory for economic operators to donate unsold foodstuffs. Otherwise, Member States will have to take measures to ensure that operators “with a significant role in the prevention and production of food waste” facilitate such donations.
“We have ensured that unsold food can be donated or redistributed via platforms such as ‘Too Good To Go’, without any unnecessary obstacles”, praised European Parliament rapporteur Anna Zalewska (ECR, Poland).
Textiles. Member States will have to set up extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems. Producers supplying textiles in an EU country will then be responsible for meeting the costs of collection, sorting and recycling. They will have 30 months after the directive comes into force to comply. The European Parliament’s request to reduce this period to 18 months was not heeded by the EU Council. A compromise was reached for micro-enterprises - which the European Parliament wanted to exclude from EPR - to extend this period by around an additional 12 months, bringing it to three and a half years in total, to comply with the requirements.
At the Parliament’s request, those involved in reuse will be spared and will not be subject to EPR. “For the ECR Group, it was essential to exclude second-hand shops from paying a royalty on each item sold”, emphasised Anna Zalewska. In her view, such a tax would “run counter to the aim of this directive, which is to promote the circular economy by encouraging repair and re-use”.
As well as clothing, the new rules will cover footwear, blankets, bed and kitchen linen, curtains and hats. Parliament has ensured that EPR will also cover mattress producers.
‘Fast fashion’ and ‘ultra-fast fashion’ practices will be taken into account by Member States in relation to the durability and useful life of products, when financial contributions to EPR systems are set.
The EU Council will now have to formally adopt its position so that the European Parliament can approve it on second reading. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)