The European Parliament has called on the European Union to introduce binding targets on recycling and consumption of materials.
At a plenary session on 9 February, MEPs said the European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) should include binding targets for materials use and consumption, covering the whole lifecycle of each product placed on the EU market, by no later than 2030.
They also called on the Commission to propose product-specific and/or sector-specific binding targets for recycled content. In a statement published on 10 February, the European Parliament said: “Parliament urges the Commission to put forward new legislation in 2021, broadening the scope of the Ecodesign Directive to include non-energy-related products. “This should set product-specific standards, so that products placed on the EU market perform well, are durable, reusable, can be easily repaired, are not toxic, can be upgraded and recycled, contain recycled content, and are resource- and energy-efficient. In March 2020, the Commission adopted a new “Circular Economy Action Plan for a Cleaner and More Competitive Europe”. Though it contains few hard legislative proposals at this stage, the Commission’s plan outlines future measures the EU executive will take to cut waste and save resources. FEAD, the trade association which represents the private waste management industry across Europe, welcomed the European Parliament’s resolution. However, it said it remained concerned about the establishment of targets to cap the generation of residual waste. It said these were not needed if recycling targets were in place and were not feasible in practice since residual waste has “no legal definition”. It also said the EU’s aim of “minimising incineration” was going in the “wrong direction”. The trade association said energy recovery from waste was a necessary treatment for non-recyclable waste.
Now Read
Europe Enhances its Greenhouse Gas Goals
Source
MEPs call for tighter EU consumption and recycling rules, Let’s Recycle, 2021-02-11
By Political Correspondent, Lukas Frisch Tonkinson.
Boˆreal 