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Legislation Update
Andrew Barnetson, Environmental Affairs Manager, EPS Packaging Group, updates EPS News readers on the latest developments in European packaging waste legislation.
The European Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive
The Packaging Waste Directive 1994 set recycling targets for 2001 and established that the revision of these targets for 2005 would begin in 2001. These new targets have still not been agreed.
Differing opinions between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers have meant that it is unclear what targets will be adopted for the future and when these targets will be enforced.
The latest situation is:
 The 'Common Position' from the Council of Ministers has been put before the European Parliament for the Second Reading (expected to take place in June or July 2003).
The European Parliament Environment Committee will consider amendments that have been proposed by Dorette Corbey, Rapporteur, (the person responsible for producing the report on this issue to the Committee), and will vote later in May 2003.
If the European Parliament text still differs from the Council of Ministers' Common Position, a Conciliation Procedure will come into force and a compromise will be reached.
Packaging Environmental Indicator (PEI)
One of the most contentious proposals of the European Parliament in the current revision is the idea of a Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI), an attempt to use Life Cycle Analysis as a standard measure of environmental performance
The PEI's key advocate is Dutch MEP and Rapporteur, Dorette Corbey, who had put pressure on the Council of Ministers to give firmer backing to the idea, has recently agreed it does not need to be included in the current review. The Council of Ministers¹ Common Position will be reviewed before 30 June 2005 and this is likely to include a review of the PEI.
PEI been vigorously criticised by Europen (the European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment).
Europen Managing Director, Julian Carroll said. "Industry experience is that where LCA has already been used to determine policy, it has resulted in discrimination against certain industries and packaging materials."
"Denmark carried out a poor LCA, which in turn led to a poorly thought out policy on packaging. Germany experienced similar problems, poorly interpreting the results of an LCA when integrating them into policy. If the European Parliament succeeds in establishing PEIs, the outcome will be negative for both industry and the environment", says Carroll.
"Methods like LCA have too many variables to be reliable as standard tools, and are effectively redundant given the existing laws that oblige companies to minimise and use greener packaging. Forcing materials companies to put PEI information on their packaging would be very expensive and would not guarantee any environment gains".
Environmental performance indicators would be more effective if they were used on whole products, rather than individual packaging: "You can't just look at empty packet, you need to assess the function of that packaging as part of a product."
"Analysing the input, output and environmental impact of the process of creating a product, including its packaging, is a better way of assessing environmental performance", concludes Carroll.
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