MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Court of Auditors (ECA), which audits the EU's finances, says in a recent review there is a significant risk that the EU will not meet its plastic packaging recycling targets for 2025 and 2030, said Chemweek.
ECA notes that the EU's 2018 update of its legal framework for plastic recycling reflects the EU’s increased ambitions and could help boost recycling capacity, but says the scale of the challenge facing the EU member states should not be underestimated. The auditors call for new and more accurate recycling reporting rules and a tightening of plastic waste export rules. Concerted action is needed to get the EU to where it wants to be in 5–10 years’ time, ECA says.
According to the review, packaging alone, such as yogurt pots or water bottles, accounts for about 40% of plastic use and more than 60% of plastic waste generated in the EU. However, packaging has the lowest recycling rate in the EU at slightly more than 40%, ECA says.
The European Commission’s plastics strategy, adopted in 2018, included an update of its 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and doubled the EU's recycling target to 50% by 2025 with a goal of 55% by 2030. Reaching these targets would be a significant step toward achieving the EU’s circular economy goals, the auditors say.
"To meet its new recycling targets for plastic packaging, the EU must reverse the current situation, whereby we incinerate more than we recycle. This is a daunting challenge,” says Samo Jereb, the ECA member responsible for the review. “By resuscitating single-use habits amid sanitary concerns, the [COVID-19] pandemic shows that plastics will continue to be a mainstay of our economies, but also an ever-growing environmental threat."
As mRC informed earlier, European petrochemical industry faces short-term and longer-term challenges caused by or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Speakers on Monday at the European Petrochemical Association’s (EPCA) 54th annual meeting, being held in a virtual format, said the crisis had been a learning experience for the industry.
According to MRC's DataScope report, Russian companies significantly raised their purchasing of PP in foreign markets in August partially because of a major increase in demand, imports were 21,200 tonnes versus 17,200 tonnes a month earlier. Thus, overall PP imports into Russia reached 143,200 tonnes in January-August 2020, compared to 120,100 tonnes a year earlier.
MRC