The European Commission announced yesterday its adoption of the Circular Economy measures to be enacted through amended Directives.
These include those relating to all the Producer Responsibility regimes (Packaging, Batteries, WEEE and Vehicles). The case for the transition is made in the European Commission’s Action Plan.
ecosurety’s role as a leading producer responsibility scheme in the UK means the organisation has a keen interest on behalf of over 1,000 members, particularly regarding the potential impacts of the revised Directives.
ecosurety comment
ecosurety believes this is a big ‘ask’ from measures that appear to largely address end-of-life issues. While there are proposed measures, for example through the Ecodesign Directive addressing recyclability, perhaps we need to place more consideration as a society on the environmental and social impacts made during a product’s life.
While we welcome the fact that the European Commission wants to capture an extra 600 million tonnes of waste currently going into landfill, we need to ensure that the any legislative change is realistic, pragmatic and cost-effective, and that pursuing recycling targets per se doesn’t end up with a net environmental deficit because we will have taken our eye off the key issues of sustainability and climate change.
Robbie Staniforth
Innovation and Policy Director
Robbie is innovation and policy director at Ecosurety. Having spent years building an intimate understanding of the industry’s policies and politics, he uses this knowledge to help shape new legislation and oversees Ecosurety’s growing portfolio of cross-industry innovation projects including Podback and the Flexible Plastic Fund. He has worked closely with Defra during the most recent packaging consultations, outlining the impacts and required transitional arrangements of the UK’s new EPR system and is a member of the government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP). He is also a spokesperson for the company and regularly uses his influence to communicate the importance of environmental responsibility to external stakeholders.
Useful links
The UK does not yet have comprehensive EPR systems in place, but that is set to change. Are you ready?
Read More >>The online Report Packaging Data portal is now live for large producers to complete enrolment and nominate their compliance scheme by 1 October.
Read More >>The ZAP project, funded by the Ecosurety Exploration Fund, was launched by the Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASBP) to help reduce the quantity of avoidable packaging plastic waste in construction, much of which is not recycled.
Read More >>
