19/08/2005 (Agence Europe) - From 18 August, all EU Member States should have transposed the European directive of 11 February 2004 into their domestic legislation. The directive sets more ambitious recycling and collection targets for packaging waste. In a press release, the Commission explains that only five Member States had informed it of having transposed the directive within the deadline, namely Germany, Austria, the UK, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic. The directive updates and tightens the 1994 directive on paper, glass, metal, plastic and wood packaging, aiming to reduce the environmental problems caused by burying and burning packaging waste and aims to encourage recycling. The new directive aims to almost double the packaging waste recycling targets (from 2008 to 2015, depending on the Member State in question). The press release explains that every EU citizen is currently directly or indirectly responsible for creating around half a kilo of packaging waste every day.