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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Council
decided, after a special meeting held on 21 July, to introduce a levy on
non-recycled discarded plastic as part of the EU's COVID-19 recovery plan,
reported Chemweek.
However, Germany's
chemical industry association VCI (Frankfurt) had, prior to the EU Council’s
meeting, expressed opposition to the project because it adds a regulatory and
cost burden rather than supporting packaging recyclability.
The EU
Council says, “As a first step, a new own resource will be introduced and apply
as of 1 January 2021 composed of a share of revenues from a national
contribution calculated on the weight of nonrecycled plastic packaging waste
with a call rate of EUR0.80 per kilogram with a mechanism to avoid an
excessively regressive impact on national contributions.”
The German
chemical industry is critical of the project, because the “levy comes at an
untimely time and sends the wrong signals. Europe's economy now needs more than
ever the framework for more innovation, but not new regulations. The proposal
also loses sight of the resource-saving effects plastics have and instead
creates a false incentive to switch to less efficient materials," says Wolfgang
Gro?e Entrup, CEO at VCI.
VCI notes that using plastics in packaging
helps with the conservation of resources and the reduction of greenhouse gases.
The recyclability of packaging is already at the heart of product developments
in companies and it must be pursued consistently, it says. However, “recycling
at all costs cannot be the answer to the problems we also see in the plastics
sector, when resource conservation suffers from an overall view,” Gro?e Entrup
says.
The proposed fee on non-recycled discarded plastic may also create
an additional cost burden for plastics producers in Germany, VCI says. This is
because the German government could decide to tax plastics producers in the
country to recover the amount it had to pay the EU under the new levy, VCI says.
This could hamper these companies' investment plans in resource-conservation
technologies, VCI says.
"If we want to strengthen
recycling, it only makes sense to promote and recognize sustainable
technologies, but not to impose additional levies that slow down the necessary
transformation processes," Gro?e Entrup says.
As MRC informed before,
members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are proposing ways to step up green
energy storage solutions such as hydrogen or home batteries, in a report that
was adopted in one of the Parliament’s voting sessions on Friday, 10 July. The
proposals outlined in the report are set to play a crucial role in reaching the
goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as more efficient energy-storage
options in the EU will help "spur decarbonization," the EU Parliament says. In
addition, since solar and wind have a variable electricity output, more storage
solutions should become available to secure supply, MEPs say.
According
to MRC's DataScope
report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year
to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main
decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first
six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer
(homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports. |
