We look again at a quite busy summer – the legislative proposals on waste were finally adopted, respectively published in the EU Official Journal, but now the actual work of their transposition and relevant implementation will start. EXPRA is already working to support and prepare its members for the new challenges abut also opportunities.
Another topic, which will keep the European Parliament, the National Ministries but also EXPRA and other stakeholders busy during this summer, is the proposed by the EC Directive to reduce the impact of certain plastic products in the environment. The proposed Directive, published on 28 May 2018 as part of the EU Plastics Strategy puts forward some radical reduction measures. While we fully support the efforts towards preventing and reducing marine litter, through different intiatives as supporting the ISWA TaskForce on Marine Litter and other activities about which you can read in the news from EXPRA members, we believe that some of the proposed measures are neither consistent with the recently-adopted new EU legislation nor justified on grounds of proportionality. We also find that the proposed radical measures are not fully justified by a proper impact assessment. We think that any new policy measures affecting EPR operations should be in line with the recently adopted Directives to avoid legal uncertainty that could jeopardize the application of those new provisions.
We in EXPRA strongly believe that the development and policy recognition of EPR under the Waste Directives prove that EPR has become a fundamental tool for efficient waste management, today and in the future. This is why the faster the Member States transpose and implement the Waste Directives, the better equipped EPR schemes will be to continue delivering results.
EXPRA of course will as always offer our great expertise in this complex sector to support that the positive goals of this initiative are fulfilled, namely less waste in general leaking and damaging our environment, but at the same time, supporting and boosting what we have and not harming the ours and other stakeholders’ efforts of the last 25 years.
Wishing you a wonderful summer!
Enjoy your reading!