Bottles, cups, boxes… the Commission is raising its ambitions in terms of recycling.
No more mini-bottles of shampoo in hotels or cups of coffee to go? The European Commission proposed on Wednesday to drastically tackle packaging waste to reduce it by 15% by 2040, compared to 2018 levels.
Brussels starts from an observation, a sort of admission of failure. Current measures, such as the ban on single-use plastic, have not achieved the hoped-for success. Around 40% of the plastic used in the EU and half of the paper today is for packaging, and their design often makes it difficult to reuse or recycle. Even though recycling has increased markedly, the amount of packaging waste – and the corresponding polluting emissions – is increasing dramatically. “If we don’t change current trends, the volume of plastic waste could increase by 46% by 2030warns Virginijus Sinkevicius, European Commissioner for the Environment.
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Simply encouraged in legislation…