EU sets target for plastic waste
EU wants to “stop plastics getting into our water, our food and even our bodies”.
He said the only long-term solution was to reduce plastic waste by recycling and reusing more within the EU.
“The Chinese decision is undoubtedly a big challenge but let’s turn that challenge into an opportunity,” he added.
China had been importing and recycling Europe’s plastic waste on a massive scale for decades and had repeatedly warned that it would stop doing so, in the best interests of the environment and the Chinese public.
Before China’s ban came into force on Jan 1, the EU’s own data shows Europeans were generating 25 million tons of plastic waste a year, but that less than 30 percent of it was being collected for recycling, with 85 percent of that then being shipped off to China. Frans Timmermans, first vicepresident of EU Commission’s
“The commission aims to increase plastic recycling and for all plastic packaging to be reusable or recyclable by 2030,” the executive body said.
AFP reported that the commission hopes its decision will stimulate business opportunities and ensure there is a huge change in the way plastic products are designed, pro- duced, and recycled in Europe.
The commission is also understood to be planning to restrict so-called microplastics, which are used in cosmetics and detergents, and has plans to bring in new rules for ports and the shipping industry, to ensure waste generated at sea by ships is not released into the water.
A number of steps
The EU will also make available $122 million for research into technical innovations to tackle the problem of plastic waste.
The commission has already taken a number of steps to try to reduce plastic waste, including the banning of free single-use shopping bags. It has also been mulling proposals to levy a tax on plastic packaging, something that was proposed last week by Guenther Oettinger, the executive’s budget commissioner.
The commission’s latest move follows several recent announcements in Europe aimed at addressing the growing problem of plastic waste.
Earlier this week, supermarket chain Iceland, which specializes in frozen foods, said it would eliminate or drastically reduce plastic packaging on all of its own-label products by the end of 2023. It also said it would pressure its suppliers to do likewise.
And fast food giant McDonald’s, which has 37,000 sites worldwide, said this week that all of its packaging throughout the world would come from sustainable sources by 2025.
The BBC reported that both companies were responding to overwhelming demand from customers to make packaging more environmentally friendly.
Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, had earlier pledged to ban all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042.
The Chinese decision is undoubtedly a big challenge but let’s turn that challenge into an opportunity.”