Brussels, 19/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a report calling for a more ambitious approach by the European Union to tackling the ever greater mountains of packaging waste, the Environment Committee (chaired by Caroline Jackson) felt that manufacturers and distributors should be made liable for preventative waste packaging management. The own initiative report drafted by Dutch Labour MEP Dorette Corbey was adopted by 18 to 6 with 23 abstentions. It analyses the implementation of the 1994 Waste Directive and makes a series of recommendations to the European Commission for the next time the Directive is reviewed.
The EP's Committee felt that more ambitious recycling targets were essential and is still waiting for the European Commission to issue a proposal with tighter targets for 2001-2006 (the proposal was originally scheduled for the end of 2000). The Committee wants prevention and recycling targets to be set for each type of material and believes that the environmental cost of packaging must be incorporated into product prices. It calls for a binding general target to be set for cutting the amount of waste packaging that is dumped and wants the Commission to get all interested parties involved in developing genuine packaging standards, acknowledging that cutting the volume of packaging had to be balanced against the need to ensure product hygiene and safety, particularly in the food industry.
Given the absence of a broad consensus on her report on the Committee and the very tight vote on the large number of amendments, Ms Corbey will try to formulate a series of compromise amendments for the plenary session to vote on.