Around 200 international delegates came to Brussels to hear experts discuss the first 20 years of extended packaging producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging waste in Europe and the future evolution of EPR in Europe and also in North America.
Speakers at the Packaging 2020: Cradle to Cradle Management seminar, run jointly by EUROPEN and PRO Europe, stressed that financial as well as environmental impacts are important when choosing methods of waste and resource management, in the transition to a green economy.
It was argued that products leaving the factory must be priced to reflect life-long management costs, and who owns the valuable collected materials made clear. Speakers also criticised national ‘green taxes’ that lack transparency and do not support recycling,
The audience from around 30 countries listened to proposals for better and fairer EPR, also known as ‘cradle to cradle’ product stewardship. Governments should set standards, monitor adherence and fight against ‘free riders’ not meeting fee-paying obligations to systems such as Green Dot; and they should promote green procurement.
The waste management and recycling sector was urged to ‘optimise and modernise’; but it was noted that, if consumers do not sort, those efforts are wasted.
EPR has attached worth to packaging waste said Julian Carroll, Managing Director of the European Organization for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN). Yet despite industry taking greater responsibility for post-consumer packaging and reducing the cost burden for local authorities, he said that some Member States have made it a vehicle for ‘taxation by stealth’,
“Industry does not influence how the money raised is used,” said co-host Joachim Quoden, Managing Director, of the European packaging recycling organisation PRO Europe. It takes ‘a look behind the curtain’ to understand why waste management costs between countries and systems are so different, up to a factor of 10, he said.
The retail chain experience of EPR was commented on by Peter White, Procter & Gamble’s Director for Global Sustainability; Tony Taylor, Sustainability and Packaging Manager, Unilever UK & Ireland; and Pascal Leglise, Quality and Sustainable Development Director at Carrefour Belgium,
Peter White observed that packaging over the past 20 years had become part of many key issues including water, energy and raw materials, For P&G, life cycle thinking and sustainability play a strategic role, and one of the ‘hot spots’ is packaging because of its link with consumer behaviour, he added.
